Dr Shannon Jamieson

My Journey

When I finished my A-Levels, I didn’t get the results I needed to study at Newcastle University and I made the decision to do another year at Post-16 to retake some of the subjects and resit the exams. This was extremely challenging, as most of my friends went off to the university of their choice and I stayed behind. However, in doing that I was able to develop myself academically and become a much better candidate when applying for university. Upon starting my undergraduate degree I realised that the role of the immune system in health and disease was something I definitely wanted to learn more about and at the end of my master’s degree I completed a project investigating the immune response to the ceramic materials that can be used in replacement hips. It was the experience in the laboratory, as well as the opportunity to work with great supervisors and other students, that encouraged me to pursue a PhD. Although my PhD was in mechanical engineering and not immunology, I was able to learn new skills in a completely different speciality and bring together biology and engineering to find out how certain materials interact with the immune system. Now I get to do this as a job and work with closely with hospitals, researchers, engineers, and surgeons to analyse patient samples so that we can gain a greater understanding of how medical implants fail and the immune system’s role in these failures.

“Everything will work out one way or another, don’t worry about the details and focus on the bigger picture.”

Dr Shannon Jamieson