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Age: 25

A levels: Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry.

Degree Course: MEng Engineering Science, University of Oxford

Michael uses magnets to peer inside your brain and ultrasound to look for bubbles in your blood.

My job is...
Research into a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging technique called Arterial Spin Labeling - basically a way by which we can peer inside the brain to see how well it is being supplied with blood.

Home is...
A small terraced house near the center of Oxford, with my wife Rebecca.

Story so far
I was always most interested in science subjects, so that set what I was going to study at school. Hence, doing Maths and Physics at A-level was pretty much certain. Initially, I did not have any intentions of doing Chemistry as well, but was persuaded by a teacher. This was definitely my hardest A-level, but I think it helped me in the end.

am not very decisive on the whole, so working out what to do at University was tricky. I was torn between Architecture and Engineering. Eventually I realised that Engineering would suit me best - I liked to take things apart to see how they work. I certainly never thought I would go to Oxford, but I liked the idea of the general Engineering Science course they offered, so I applied. To my surprise, I got in! It turned out to be a brilliant opportunity as I stayed on to do a PhD.

As well as studying engineering at University I also took up SCUBA diving. I had never imagined that my hobby and my degree would come together. However, I found someone who would let me study the formation of bubbles in the body - which causes a condition known as the bends in divers - during my PhD. Studying engineering certainly hasn't limited my career choices and has led me into medical engineering, where I am finding just how much can be done when engineering knowledge is combined with medicine.

Day in the life
I generally aim to be at work by 9(ish), my time is quite flexible, but I don't want to end up working late into the evening because I couldn't get up early enough. Mornings are usually pretty productive; I am often trying to read work that other people have done and seeing how it applies to what I am doing. I use a computer a lot, all the work I do is 'behind the scenes' - one day my work will just be another tool for doctors to use. I actually dislike programming computers, but its worth the effort because it allows me to do all sorts of things that I couldn't do by hand.

Lunch is really important as I am probably in need of a good break by then, research is surprisingly tiring – it must be all the thinking involved! If I have a good lunch break I have a better chance of a productive afternoon.

I do quite a bit of teaching for Undergraduate students in Engineering, so that often absorbs some of my afternoon. Generally I am teaching stuff that I did in my degree course, so I have a good idea of which bits are difficult. I still get caught out sometimes and have to admit that I have no idea!

Pet project
I found the research I did during my PhD really interesting: SCUBA divers run the risk of getting the bends at the end of a dive. The bends is the name of a variety of symptoms that are caused by bubbles forming in the body. The symptoms may be as mild as a skin rash or much more serious like dizziness. The bubbles come from gases dissolved in the organs, which are released when the diver finishes the dive - in a similar way to bubbles forming when you open a fizzy drink.

My research dealt with these bubbles. There were basically two things I was looking at: the first was detecting the bubbles that form in the body. This can be done using ultrasound, the same technology that allows you to see unborn babies. The other work I was doing was making mathematical models of the growth of bubbles in the body. The idea is to understand how the bubbles form and how the bubbles that I measure in the heart relate to what is going on in the rest of the body.

I plan to continue my work with bubbles in SCUBA divers, but I am now also gaining experience in other areas of medical engineering. My latest project finds me working at the main hospital in Oxford. Here I am working with MRI machines. These allow us to take 3D pictures of the inside of the body using very tiny changes in the magnetic properties of the body organs.

I am working with a particular technique where we label blood in the neck, by changing its magnetic polarity, and then watch it flow through the brain. That way we should be able to look for problems in blood flow and so diagnose a range of diseases. The challenge comes because we need to measure very small changes and so we have to treat the pictures using particular mathematical techniques. The great thing is that by looking at the flow of blood in the brain we can even see which bits are working harder than others - so we can practically see what people are thinking!

Freetime
I am a keen diver, and I do most of my diving in the UK – yes it is cold, but I have a nice dry suit to keep me warm. The advantage of UK diving is that I get to see lots of shipwrecks, which are really impressive underwater. The highlight, however, was probably the time I met a Dolphin on a really boring dive in Weymouth!

The best thing is...
The number of different problems I get to tackle as an engineer - from bubbles in SCUBA divers to the operation of the brain.

Regrets?
I don’t have any regrets, I am really pleased with the way things have worked out. I hadn’t planned very hard what I was going to do (perhaps I should have done this a little more), but great opportunities have come my way.