It was 1998 and my first ever departmental staff meeting. I sat down next to a familiar face and listened as the head of department outlined priorities for the year ahead. Within minutes, though, my heart began to sink. Where do I fit in?
I have often been a little bit different. When I began my lectureship, I was the youngest academic in the department of Manufacturing Engineering and Operations Management. I was also one of only a handful of women—and, perhaps most unusually, a lecturer in “Human Factors”1. This research area was not always well understood by my colleagues, and I had not yet developed my own shorthand method of describing the discipline as ‘minimising the impact of human fallibility and maximising the value of human brilliance’.
Since that first departmental staff meeting I have built a strong academic career, contributed to national policy, and lead one of the largest Faculties of Science and Engineering at a UK university. How did I move from feeling as though I didn’t belong to finding a place where I could thrive? These are some reflections on what helped along the way.
1. Deliver the basics
The core responsibilities of academics—teaching and research—have remained remarkably constant since I started out in the 1990s. If you focus on delivering those fundamentals well, you will build trust and credibility. Get stuck in, whether that means contributing to course design, supporting student consultations, or helping out in other ways. You will learn about the diversity of roles within an academic setting and understand where you can make the biggest contribution that aligns with your strengths and interests.
Doing the basics consistently builds your reputation as being collegiate, and you are seen as one of the team. It gave me time to learn, to observe, to understand the system you have joined, to make friends. Time to discover where I could contribute most meaningfully. It also gave me time to build the confidence that my discipline, although unfamiliar to many colleagues, had an essential role to play.
2. Find someone who will support you
After a few organisational changes, our team moved into a School dominated by mechanical engineers. This amplified the sense of being different.
Those early conversations often carried an undertone of What exactly are you doing here? What helped immeasurably was having someone who had my back: Professor John Wilson, my PhD supervisor and our discipline leader. John was a maverick thinker—visionary, unafraid to challenge structures, and admired widely by the many students he inspired.
John gave me honesty, clarity, and reassurance. I could walk into his office (as long as I didn’t interrupt The Archers) and ask him anything. He would tell me when I was right, and—crucially—when I was being an idiot. I didn’t always follow his advice but his voice shaped my decisions. Even now, thirteen years after his death, I still find myself asking, What would John think? His support gave me the confidence to keep going.
I was lucky, John was there for me from the start, but you might not be in the same position, and might need to work to find that person who has your back. Mentoring schemes can be helpful in finding people who explicitly help to support your careers, and building a relationship with a research group lead or course director can also be a path to finding that person.
3. Embrace a changing landscape
About 10 years into my career, at a point where I now had two young children so was juggling calls from the nursery with being a senior lecturer, was a time of major change in UK research funding. Large-scale multidisciplinary initiatives, especially in areas like the Digital Economy, were emerging. These hubs and doctoral training centres brought together researchers from a wide range of disciplines and placed people at the heart of complex technological systems. For me, this was a real positive - Human Factors fit naturally within those conversations.
But it wasn’t straightforward. I had to balance the alignment with the multidisciplinary, challenge-led approach to funding with the need to continue to deliver fundamental science publications that advanced my own discipline, and demonstrated the academic contribution required to achieve promotion. It was different to a theoretically motivated approach to writing research proposals – instead we had to ensure that the challenge-led research proposals also delivered that opportunity for theoretical insight.
There was also a challenge to ensure that human factors wasn’t simply treated as a service unit— a tick box to demonstrate the human-centred part of a consortium. Multidisciplinary work, when done well, takes time: time to learn new languages and methods; time to understand different contexts; time to build mutual respect. But when it works, it is transformative.
We are now at a similar inflection point in research funding, with increased focus on research calls which align with government priorities and the Industrial Strategy. Learning how to develop research approaches that deliver for those priorities and also deliver strong fundamental insight is important, and doesn’t need to feel like a compromise if you are part of a strong team where collaborators understand each others’ strengths and goals.
4. Find your people
By doing multidisciplinary work, I learned to translate my disciplinary insights into frames that others recognise. But you also need time with people who speak your first language—those who share the same deep curiosity about your discipline.
For me, that place is the annual Ergonomics and Human Factors Conference, where ergonomists exchange ideas and immerse themselves in the science of how people interact with the world. There is immense joy in that environment.
Deep engagement in one’s discipline isn’t only comforting; it’s essential. It sharpens expertise, strengthens identity and ensures that the multidisciplinary work you contribute to is rooted in a strong home discipline.
5. Understand your context
I realised early on that if I understood how universities worked as organisations, I could navigate change far more effectively. Universities are complex and often financially constrained.
Through being curious about how our financial models worked, I realised that the MSc modules that were fundamental to our discipline, but financially unviable as stand-alone entities, could be salvaged by being incorporated into other programmes, such as Product Design and Human–Computer Interaction. This broadened our teaching reach, increased financial viability, and connected us to new academic communities. It also softened the isolation I had felt in that very first staff meeting.
6. Deliver what you love
Over time, I learned where my strengths lay: teaching, supporting PhD students, bringing people together, and untangling complex governance issues. I enjoyed being able to make sense of disparate threads and help shape decisions that empowered others. When I pointed out areas that could be improved, I was often given the responsibility to fix them. And importantly, people noticed and thanked me.
I also learned to stop doing things that weren’t a good fit. I was not, for example, a particularly effective journal editor. Recognising this allowed me to focus my energy where I could genuinely excel. Everyone has a niche; finding it can make all the difference.
7. Don’t be defensive
I learned this lesson too late. All too often, I tried to ‘beat the boys’ and compete with them. I wish that earlier on in my career I had had more quiet confidence that I should just keep doing what I was good at, and not worry as much about others.
Later, I realised that the way that I had to demonstrate the impact and importance of our work was by telling stories. I am proud of initiating The Human Connection publications with the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, which used stories to illuminate the difference our discipline can make. Later, as Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department for Transport, I refined this approach even further. Whether the work was in quantum technologies, AI, or future fuels for decarbonisation, storytelling helped ensure that science and engineering were central to wider government priorities. Learn how to tell your own stories.
It could be tough at times, but I now realise that being different became my superpower.
Footnotes
1 In the UK the terms ‘ergonomics’ and ‘human factors’ are used synonymously, and that approach is applied in this essay: Wilson, J. R., & Sharples, S. (Eds.). (2015). Evaluation of Human Work (4th ed.). Boca Raton: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group.
Cite this blogpost:
