Gillian Riddell is the Senior Technician in the School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences. In her current role Gillian has a wide range of responsibilities and works closely with academics and students.
Background
Gillian has a BSc(Hons) in Environmental Biology & Ecology from Dundee University and has had a variety of jobs, including as an Environmental Consultant in a Belfast based company, MarEnCo; a short term Technician post in Ecology and Animal Behaviour at Queen's; she was funded by the Rivers Agency to undertake an environmental impact survey in Strangford Lough; and she had an industry post in an ecotoxicology lab. Gillian returned to Queen's in a permanent technician role in Behaviour and Ecology in August 1999.
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Current roles and responsibilities
In her current role as Gillian has a diverse range of responsibilities, such as Athena Swan Co-Champion, Environmental Health & Safety Advisor, Equipment Liaison Officer and First Aider (both physical and mental health). Gillian also work closes with academics and students. She organises residential undergraduate field courses in Biodiversity, Coastal & Oceanic Biology and Applied Ecology. She also works with postgraduates and manages labs, resources, equipment, and contributes to research projects. These have included projects funded by NERC, BBSRC and Leverhulme Trust.
Gillian is passionate about promoting technical careers and highlighting the value of technical contribution to research and teaching in Higher Education. The vast majority of technicians are experts in their chosen disciplines and should be recognised as such. Gillian is currently the Technical Lead for the Technician Commitment at Queen's. This is a Science Council driven national initiative aimed at increasing Visibility, Recognition, Career Development and Sustainability of technical staff within Higher Education, such as through appropriate acknowledgements and co-authorships within research publications.
Contribution to specific research initiative or project
Over the years Gillian has contributed to many key projects, for example she worked with an interdisciplinary team from across a number of institutions on a NERC funded Soil Security Programme. The purpose of the interdisciplinary team, spread across several institutions, was to test the hypothesis that the ability of soils to withstand, recover and adapt to disturbance events is dependent on the stability of the soil food web, governing the rate of transfer of nutrients and energy through the plant-soil system.
Over the course of this project Gillian managed and coordinated both field and laboratory work, including allocating personnel to the field and lab workstream; as well as offering expertise in the lab, including many hours spent at the microscope checking samples, ensuring consistency in ID and collating data. To date, the findings have been published in 5 research papers published in: Nature, Pedobiologia, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Global Change Biology and Ecology and Evolution.