Meet the Team: Kirsteen

Hi, I’m Kirsteen!

My name’s Kirsteen. My role at the UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC), doing communications and engagement, manages to be challenging and fun at the same time. As the UK LLC is a brand new project set up in response to the pandemic, I’ve been involved in setting up our brand identity, communications and engagement from scratch. It’s been a brilliant way to express my creativity and learn from experts about the thought and care that goes into building something from the ground up. Generation Scotland is one of the UK LLC partner studies. Their Chief Operating Officer is also my boss, Robin Flaig. This means I get to tag onto Team Generation Scotland and learn how a longitudinal study works. Their support and guidance has been invaluable.

Before this role, I worked for many years with Cancer Research UK. I started there as a total novice at well, everything. They gave me opportunities to learn and develop my skills. I supported community groups, managed relationships with national partners, ran events and so much more. Over more than two decades, I met incredible people, made lasting friendships and laughed a lot. Of the multiple roles I had at Cancer Research UK, the one I enjoyed the most was as part of the Research Engagement Team. I was based at the Beatson Institute in Glasgow, surrounded by an international and diverse collection of scientists. It felt special to be able to bring supporters into our research labs to chat with scientists about their work into beating cancer. On leaving the charity, the one thing I knew I wanted to do was stay involved in research, where the purpose was to help people. Which brings me neatly back to my current work which has been set up to aid COVID-19 research.

Outside of work, what I love the most is spending time with my family and friends. Going to our local pool (to float rather than swim), movies nights with the lights out for cinematic effect (and decent supply of chocolate) and country walks (often with muddy puddles) with our lab Molly. It’s not rock and roll, but I like it.