The My Warwick Life feature gives an insight into staff and students’ lives at Warwick, considering both their work and social life on campus. This week we hear from Vas Stavros, Royal Society University Research Fellow in the Department of Chemistry.

There’s no such thing as a typical day, but, in a nutshell, my job involves…

getting paid to do my hobbies. I thoroughly enjoy my research because of the amazing team of researchers I have self-dubbed ‘Team Stavros’. I really enjoy teaching because of our excellent undergraduates who constantly challenge me. And I have great colleagues whom I have formed life-long friendships with, including my head of section, who was best man at my wedding recently!

I had a really nice Christmas card from…

a family who visited the Chemistry Department's Admissions Day. As one of the Admissions Tutors, I get to meet some wonderful families and knowing that your efforts are appreciated, regardless of whether their son or daughter chooses Warwick, makes the job worth it.

It would be really useful to work more closely with…

Nick Barker, the Chemistry Department's outreach officer. Those who know Nick will understand when I say that he’s an inspiration to us all. I wish I had more time to go out to schools with him and just contribute more to his amazing efforts. Keep up the great work Nick, you are making a difference!

I recently attended a conference where…

four of my research group presented their work. Let me just say that there was a very proud supervisor in the audience with a huge smile on his face! It’s a great feeling when you see how much your students have developed into young researchers and are able hold their own. I definitely have the best job in the world.

I'm really enjoying working on…

my lectures at the moment, especially on making them more interactive. A colleague of mine had carried out some really nice research on the use of clickers in lectures and we tried these out last year with the help of E-Learning and got a really positive response from our students.

I recently learned that…

a rather large number of students have signed up for a pilot ‘Tae Kwon Do for Chemists’ class that I am going to run over in the Sports Centre. Normally I can anticipate the response I will get during a lecture when I say ‘you have 10 minutes to think about this problem’. I’m not sure what the response will be when I now say ‘don’t stop kicking until I blow the whistle’. Whatever happens, it is going to be lots and lots of fun and sweat!

The best thing about working at Warwick is…

the freedom I get to do whatever I want (within reason of course and from a very supportive HoD!). What more can I ask for?

I recently went to the Arts Centre to watch…

Lenny Henry, and it was amazing. He had everyone dancing over in the Butterworth Hall at the end. What fun, brought back memories of Tiswas. The man is a legend!

I recently had lunch at…

Gusto and really liked it. The staff were friendly and the food was great.

If I could change one thing about the University, it would be…

to improve public transportation. There is a lot to be said about the U.S. system, where Universities run their own bus service. I don’t use the bus service largely because of this, but when I do, I find the service unreliable, especially out of term time.