Success is about happiness and security, rather than hitting any particular sort of job or rung on the career ladder.

It hasn't always easy to combine these two competing ambitions and, in retrospect, it's a shame no one steered me towards science communications, which I think would have suited me down to the ground. But careers advice has largely been absent from my life, so I have pretty much made it up as I've gone along!

It might sound trite, but happiness is a decision not a destination, and my choices now are all based on whether not a particular action will get me closer to my goals. It's something I'm quite ruthless about, and it helps me avoid the aforementioned wild goose chases!

I first learnt to program a computer when I was nine, when my dad got a ZX80, but I think I would have had to be a particularly perspicacious child to have foreseen the iPad or Twitter!

As for where I am now, well, social media didn't exist when I was a child, and I never would have guessed just how much of a role in my life and career technology would play.

Success is about happiness and security, rather than hitting any particular sort of job or rung on the career ladder.

I am terminally curious, so I tend to be attracted to the shiny. That's a mixed blessing, as sometimes it means that I can end up right on the cutting edge, but sometimes it can result in wild goose chases as well. Either way, it makes life interesting!