Meet the Team: Cliff

Hi, I’m Cliff!

Hi, I’m Cliff, and I’ve been working in IT since 2001. I currently work as a Data Linkage Officer for Generation Scotland. I’ve been building our new survey website to make it easy for our volunteers to share views and opinions with us. We plan to move away from long surveys, covering many topics, to short surveys taking a few minutes to complete. This website will help us do that.

Several years ago, I completed a PgDip in Mathematics with the Open University. I learned how to find similarities between the problems I work on and ones other people have found solutions to. I figure out how to adapt these solutions to problems I’m working to solve.

I previously worked for UK Biobank as a data analyst. Before this, I worked on a project with prescribing data for NHS Scotland. Electronic health records document the treatments administered to patients. These records are stored in many databases to support administrative functions. These databases describe treatments provided by NHS Scotland over many years. That means it’s possible to compare treatments and outcomes, enabling us to improve our health and enjoy more in life.

Generation Scotland aims to help researchers understand how variations in our genes affect our health. This work will help find treatments that help us live lives we can enjoy. It’s heartwarming to know that my contribution to this project will make meaningful improvements to the health of many people.

Outside work, I like swimming, photography, camping and going for walks and cycles in the countryside. I like taking photographs when I’m out in the countryside because the camera captures a small section of the landscape. This gets me thinking about what is going to be in the photograph and what is not.