Ann Grand

 

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Job: Would that there were just one! Currently, in my job portfolio:

I'm the Company Secretary for Cyberlife Research. (This sounds good, but really means I'm the one who goes to gaol if the forms don't get filled in properly.)

I'm Assistant Organiser for Junior Cafe Scientifique.

I'm Data Manager for Chew Valley School.

And I'm developing my freelance copy-editing practice.

Email: ann@cyberlife-research.com

Age: not telling.

Family: married to Steve, mother of Christopher, aged 24.

My enduring claim to immortality will be that I bought Steve his very first computer, way back in 1978. He'd been through a series of programmable calculators, but they were mere toys. This was a real computer. Well actually, it was a real pile of hundreds of chips, which we spent my birthday putting together. Odd way to spend one's coming-of-age but a good investment, as it turned out. Through Steve, I've been privileged to meet some of my intellectual heroes (and some people who've become new heroes). Science has long been a passion of mine. Although never a practising scientist, I've read about it, thought about it, tried to understand it (even attempted to explain it!) for most of my life. I've been able to listen to, talk to and meet with scientists at the leading edge of their fields. I've had the chance to ask questions, to listen to the answers, to be challenged and generally to develop my own understanding. I've been pleasantly surprised at their willingness to explain their ideas, answer dumb questions and take an outsider's view of their work seriously .

Cyberlife Research being very small (two whole people!), Company Secretary is a hugely overblown title. I'm the support system; buying things, looking after things, counting the pennies, making lists of things, making the coffee... doing the things that take Steve away from the all-important thinking stuff. I made Lucy's circuit boards (another claim to fame!) - bet you didn't know the top of an Aga is exactly the right temperature for etching!

Three years ago, I started the Bristol Cafe Scientifique, a member of the world-wide Cafe Scientifique family. Cafe sci are events where people get together and for the price of a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, explore the latest ideas in science and technology. There are around thirty in the UK and many more across the globe. From that movement has sprung Junior Cafe Scientifique. JCS are informal, school-based events where students and practising scientists meet to question and discuss ideas and issues in contemporary science and technology. My role is to deal with resources, communication, website and information generally to support the work of the Project Organisers in schools. Hmm... is there a theme developing here?

For the last eighteen months or so I've been developing a freelance copy-editing practice. I specialise in on-screen editing but publishers are dear sweet old-fashioned things and curiously wedded to pen and paper, so I still edit on paper as well. I've edited stuff from agricultural reports to popular science (including Growing up with Lucy); science books (including several of Oneworld Publications beginner's guide series -- the brain, evolutionary psychology, NATO; and in a curious twist, several of the same company's books on in their 'Makers of the Muslim World' series and most recently, a major tome on the History of Islam. If you'd like to know more about my rates (extremely reasonable!) and see some examples of my work, do send me an email.

 

 
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Last modified: 06/04/04