I was born in the middle of a blizzard in 1977 in Croydon. I'm now 30 and wishing I weren't having to correct that figure for the seventh time.

I went to school at Archbishop Tenison's and then to Imperial College London, where I got my degree in plant sciences. I stayed on to do a PhD in the bacterial biotransformation of the organic antisapstain biocide 3-iodoprop-2-ynyl-N-butyl carbamate (IPBC). This can be summed up as "IPBC is relatively benign".

It was at Imperial college that I met my husband Alex, without whose technical skills you would be doing something more worthwhile than wasting your time surfing this site when you should be working, putting up some shelves, looking after the kids, or whatever it is you people do.

Towards the end of my PhD, I got involved in undergraduate teaching, and eventually ended up on a scheme that placed post-docs into schools. I now spend most of my time marking undergraduates' work, lecturing and being stuck on tubes. When not teaching, or doing things I'm not likely to admit to on a publically accessible website, I grow carnivorous plants, look after Cornelia, and get interested in pointless things, like hieroglyphics and paradoxes.

I can give my thumbs up to all of the following: the Perl programming language, chillis, Marmite, Gore Vidal, Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, Placebo, dental floss, gin and things that are purple. You may now resume your time-wasting.