Profile

I grew up in Warrington in the north-west, but my parents are both from Kent. I moved to London for university.

I finished my PhD in November last year, which means I can call myself ‘Dr Rob Stanley’. My mum is particularly looking forward to my graduation where I have to wear a silly hat (a floppy one, not a mortarboard)!

I got married in March!

I don’t have any pets but I really want a cat.

The cells that make up your body are complicated machines. To stay healthy they need to respond in the right way to information about themselves, their neighbours, and the world around them. All sorts of diseases are caused by cells misbehaving or not playing well with others.

While most biologists try to understand how cells work by doing experiments, I use maths and computer programs to try and understand how cells work. I make predictions exactly like how weather forcasters try to predict whether it will rain. We can then test these predictions.

In my current job, I also write materials for an online course to teach other biologists how to use maths and programming so that they can try and predict things about the parts of biology they are interested in.

I’m a bit of an odd biologist as I’m rarely in the lab. (I have tried to do experiments, but I wasn’t very good at them.)

I start the day with a coffee and by writing down the things I need to get done. I’ll then spend some time catching up with technology and science news.

My work is often with a pen and paper, solving algebra equations. Otherwise it’s on a computer, trying to get my code to work!

To take a break in the afternoon, I often go for a walk or a swim to think about how to solve my science problems.