Profile
Rachel Pallan
Curriculum Vitae
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Work History:
I’ve worked all over…Accessorize, Pizza hut, Thermopak (a food manufacturing company), Siemens (make wind turbines) and Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering – University of Leeds
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Current Job:
PhD in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine
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Employer:
University of Leeds
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My Work
I’m a chatty person who loves pretty much any sport. For my work I look at the natural hip from what its made of to how it works and also what happens if its not a ‘normal’ shape.
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I’m a very active person and love to be doing ‘stuff’ anything from sports to shopping, eating out or travelling. I play netball, badminton and trampoline. This is me skiing
I support Newcastle United Football Club (although I’m not so sure why) and I also like going to watch rugby. I also have a house rabbit called Jimmy who is crazy. 
.I work in a university carrying out research (doing a PhD) where I look at how the hip works. I am trying to understand what happens when the hip is miss-shaped and how it becomes damaged to try and prevent the need for hip joint replacements. I look at a part of the hip called the labrum where I am looking at what it is made of and how it functions.
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My Typical Day: On a typical day I spend most of my time in the lab carrying out experiments. I also work in an office analysing my results or writing up my thesis
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I spend a lot of time either preparing or running experiments. I work with real hips where I have to prepare them by removing the tissues I need or cutting them to shape . I carry out different experiments either on the natural hip or joint replacements.
This is a machine to do strength tests where I crush (compress) or stretch my tissue to see how strong it is.
I also run a simulator which makes the hip move how it would in the body. I can change the way it moves to create damage to the hip like what would happen in the body if someone had a disease or problem with their hip.
Other than spending time in the lab I also analyse my results and put the data into graphs so I can compare different tissues or scenarios. This is a graph of a joint simulation to show the different directions its moving.
Another part of the research I carry out is to look at joint replacements and see how they can be improved, to work more like the natural hip joint. This is a real joint replacement to go into a hip
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What I'd do with the money
I would like to use the money to develop an activity to take into schools to show what you can do as an engineer
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I would like to develop an activity where you can look at how well two surfaces articulate against each other then damage a surface (to represent a joint disease) and see the effects it has.
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Happy Energetic Determined
What's the best thing you've done in your career?
Its a toss up between taking Frank our skeleton to meet new people or going to conferences to present my work because we get to go all over the world (I’m going to AMERICA next month!!!!!)
What did you want to be after you left school?
Teacher – I think I have wanted to be one since I was about 6
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Not very often but I did accidentally get my whole year sent home once
If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?
P.E Teacher
Who is your favourite singer or band?
The Kinks or I normally listen to music in the gym so anything fast and cheesy (I need a hero is generally a good one – the Shrek version)
What's your favourite food?
Thai green curry – although not the spicy ones I’m a big heat whimp
What is the most fun thing you've done?
Snorkeled on the great barrier reef…..until someone shouted shark!
Tell us a joke.
How do you make a tissue dance…..you put a boogie in it!
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