Meet our Bloggers: John Preece

Every week one of our bloggers will introduce themselves to the world and talk about how much fun it is working in Science Policy. We start with John Preece in Toronto and next week the team’s only non-scientist, Ashley Tomlins in Vancouver, will introduce himself.

John Preece – Toronto

I’m a chemist by training, completing my M. Sci. in organic synthesis / spectroscopy and Ph. D. in fuel reforming for high temperature fuel cells at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. After graduation I decided that I was done with academia for a while, went off travelling and then took a job lecturing in chemistry at Ewha Womans University in South Korea. I hadn’t planned on getting into science diplomacy when I came to Canada, but as it turned out it was pretty fun and I’m quite good at it.

I’ve been in Toronto for about four years, covering science and innovation activities for Ontario (excluding Ottawa). There are two things that I particularly like about this kind of science diplomacy work: the variety (I work across all disciplines and meet all kinds of interesting researchers) and the ability to contribute to the advancement of science (even if I’m not doing research anymore). Toronto is a very active city with an excellent science base – there is always something going on, and always some cutting-edge research happening somewhere.

Most of my non-work time is currently taken up with co-managing a small family, but I am looking forward to the day when the kids can help me fix my bike or create a neat Raspberry Pi project. I spend a fair bit of weekend time out at Toronto’s discovery-centric attractions (mostly the Ontario Science Centre and Toronto Zoo), play the occasional board/computer game, and daydream of a house in The Beaches. I tweet (mostly) about science at @jcpreece.