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Natalie Ireland
Where can I get a giant whoopee cushion? Will health and safety allow us to organise a Victorian-style s茅ance? Does anyone have a knitting pattern for a bacterium? These are the kind of questions that keep Natalie Ireland awake at night. As director of the , she is in charge of pulling together nine days worth of cultural events, interactive exhibits, school shows and intellectual debates into a coherent celebration of science.
Natalie admits that the job has taken over her life, especially in the weeks leading up to the festival. She oversees a dizzying array of tasks, involving deciding which topics to include and the best way to present them, fund-raising, designing the visitor programme, updating the festival blog and, during the caffeine-fuelled festival week itself, making sure everything runs smoothly.
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Natalie studied medical microbiology and immunology at the University of Newcastle, during which she discovered a love of looking at 鈥済ross pictures of diseases鈥�. This, combined with a fondness for TV shows like Blue Peter and David Attenborough鈥檚 wildlife documentaries, helped shape her career. 鈥淚 found these shows fascinating and couldn鈥檛 understand why some people didn鈥檛 share my enthusiasm, so I used to try and explain things to them 鈥� what I had learned at school and, later on, stuff about microbes and disease.鈥� She got a job as a 鈥渟cience explainer鈥� at the Centre for Life in Newcastle, where things 鈥渏ust fell into place 鈥� communicating with people, the science, and working with kids鈥�.
After a brief stint there, Natalie joined the as their science festival officer. So has the step up to director of her own festival made her power mad? 鈥淣o, I鈥檓 pretty down to earth. I like getting involved in the nitty-gritty stuff,鈥� she says. 鈥淛ust last week I found myself on my hands and knees making slime and chatting about non-Newtonian fluids and Ghostbusters with 8-year-olds.鈥�
聯I was chatting about non-Newtonian fluids and Ghostbusters with 8-year-olds聰