I remember the moment well. I'd been expounding on the work of Granovetter, Burt, Watts & Strogatz, Gladwell and others to a cohort of MBA students. As I was speaking, an unbidden thought bubbled to the surface. It said something like "It's all very well making a living out of reporting other people's research- why don't you do some of your own?"

​

It was an itch that needed to be scratched, so I signed up to a part time Doctorate in Business Administation at Durham Business School. Six years later (two years taught modules and four of research), that doctorate is complete and was ratified in March 2014. Entitled 'Words into Actions- does a networking skills workshop have a quantifiable effect on the mindset and actions of participants?', you'll find the abstract of the thesis here.

​

During the doctoral journey, I was awarded first prize in the 2010 Durham University part time researcher academic poster competition, developed an elective three day 'Negotiation Skills' module and have tutored global MBA students on the 'Methods of Inquiry' module.  That experience qualified me for the Durham Learning and Teaching Award which led to Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy and in July 2014 I was awarded the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice which comprises a literature review and pilot study into the differences between screen and hard copy reading.

​

My Doctorate in Business Adminstration was awarded in July 2014, and I was also lucky enough to pick up the prize for 'Best DBA Doctoral Thesis, Durham University Business School Summer Congregation 2014 Cohort.'

​

In  March 2014 I participated in a British Council funded multidisciplinary workshop on fluoride metabolism in Baru, Brazil, which led to working with colleagues from Teesside University and the University of Sao Paulo on a proposal for looking at the effects of exercise on fluoride metabolism. In June 2014 I was part funded by Durham University's Institute of Advanced Research Computing (iARC) to participate in the Summer Institute run by the Center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems (CASOS) at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA.

​

In 2016, I was awarded a Chief of the Air Staff Fellowship to undertake a Masters in Medical Law and Ethics (LLM) at Edinburgh University Law School, and completed this with Merit in November 2018.