Sue Assinder
Sue Assinder is Head of the School of Biological Sciences at University of Wales, Bangor. She is the Education Officer on SGM Council, its governing body.

Sue has a wealth of experience in promoting microbiology to the public and to schools including helping to organize the annual Wrexham Science Festival. She won the BBSRC Science Communicator Award in 1995 for her teacher’s guide DNA The Recipe for Life, and has recently co-authored a children’s activity book How the Mushroom Got its Spots.

Sue is the link between the SGM education staff and practising scientists, ensuring that our activities are both scientifically accurate and completely up-to-date.

Janet Hurst
Janet is External Relations Manager for the SGM, responsible for its interactions with the outside world such as Society scientific conferences, membership and production of Microbiology Today as well as science and careers promotion. She has been at SGM for more than a decade and has organized many public lectures, debates and workshops as well as creating teaching resources and careers literature. Her background is in food microbiology, but she is also a qualified librarian and information scientist and has worked in schools.

Dariel Burdass
Dariel is a graduate microbiologist and qualified teacher who has worked in both primary and secondary schools in the UK and in France. She produces teaching resources for all age groups, organises the well-regarded INSET coures for teachers and technicians and manages a range of exciting projects. Dariel is always pleased to respond to enquiries from teachers or students, preferably by email.

Jane Westwell
Jane manages SGM grant schemes and runs all our careers initiatives. This includes organizing events for university students as well as attending careers fairs aimed at schools. She is responsible for producing and distributing all SGM careers promotional material - leaflets, posters and factsheets. See our separate careers website for details. Jane set up and maintains both this and the careers websites. She also lends a hand with educational activities when we go out on the road to ASE and other events.

Yvonne Taylor
Last but not least, Yvonne is our PA who carries out the less glamorous but essential tasks like running the teachers' database, and fulfilling all the requests for resources. She also organises the bookings for our courses and prepares the delegate packs. If you phone us with an enquiry, you'll be speaking to Yvonne.