Profile
Beth Campbell
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About Me:
I live with my partner and our kitten in Berkshire. I work in water purification, and enjoy playing korfball (look it up!), dancing, climbing, cooking and eating!
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I started playing korfball at university – it is a Dutch sport a bit like basketball or netball, but a team is made up of 4 men and 4 women. As no-one has ever heard of it, people are normally pretty friendly – the only way to get people interested! I train once or twice a week and play matches in a local league on Sundays between October – April. This year, I am also social secretary on our club’s committee, so I enjoy organising fun activities for us all to meet up outside of training – for example, I organised a Sports Day in summer – the first time I have raced with an egg & spoon since primary school!
I am trying hard to be more vegetarian for environmental reasons, though I do love eating meat. This means I have to try harder to make interesting vegetarian meals, and particularly love cooking veggie curries, roughly “following” recipes from my partner’s mum, who is South African of Indian descent. She is typically horrified by my use of the same spices for every curry…
My kitten is called Boo! She is the foster sister of my Partner’s sister’s cat who is also black named by us – Spooky.
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My pronouns are:
she/her
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How I use Science in my work:
My work involves the purification of tap water to produce ultra pure water for use in scientific research. One of the main technologies is reverse osmosis – the pressure assisted reverse of osmosis that is the process through which water moves into and out of cells. Instead of water moving from a region of low osmotic pressure across a semi-permeable membrane to a region of high osmotic pressure, pure water is forced through a membrane, leaving a more concentrated salt solution behind.
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My Work:
I manage a range of lab water purification products for any scientific research from microplastic analysis in the Arctic to cancer research and much more. My role focuses on how we can improve the products to make them more useful for the scientists, ensuring minimised risk of unreliable results!
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I collaborate with all of the different departments at my company; sales and marketing to understand the needs of the customer, and better spread knowledge about our products; research and development to investigate new technologies that might be able to be incorporated into our future products, improving performance, efficiency, sustainability, and cost.
I particularly enjoy the interactions with scientists that I have; collaboration with R&D (of which I was part of the team until the start of 2025), meeting scientists at conferences and interrogating scientific literature for new ideas and innovations.
My previous role was in R&D on wastewater treatment; alongside pure water production, my company have a small project looking at treating the wastewater from blood testing analysers, and my main focus was on removing nano- and microplastics from this wastewater. This was a difficult but very rewarding role.
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My Typical Day:
I wake up, drink some tea, feed my kitten, and drive to work for about 8.30 am. I normally have some porridge when I arrive to fuel my day. I check my emails to see whether anyone needs anything from me, but otherwise get on with tasks such as producing marketing material for new product launches, analysing the competitor’s products, or investigating new opportunities for product development or optimisation. I typically have a couple of meetings each day, where I share progress on my work, hear from others about their work, or collaborate to generate new ideas. I have a short lunch, because I have quite a long commute (~ 1 hour) so I like to be able to leave at a reasonable time to enjoy cooking and relaxing in the evening at home.
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Some example tasks I do include:
Competitor analysis – investigating competitor products to determine the strengths and weaknesses of our and their products, to determine unique selling points to aid our sales people in the field.
Customer feedback – speaking with customers to understand what they like and don’t like about our products, and what they require from potential future developments.
New product introductions – producing marketing materials, taking information from the technical teams and putting it together for commercial purposes, then presenting a webinar to introduce the product to the global markets.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
I would like to engage the kids in some practical STEM activities related to positive environmental action. Some examples of activities might include funding volunteering at community gardens or helping to establish new green spaces involving planting, weeding, harvesting, and promoting local food production. More practically, this might be a school activity investigating seasonal produce and providing the equipment to allow students to grow their own Cut-and-Come-Again Salad Leaves (like loose-leaf lettuce, rocket, or mixed salad greens) in Spring. This teaches about plant growth, the importance of sunlight and water, and the concept of sustainable harvesting.
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Education:
Clarendon House Grammar School – Kent. An all girls school which meant I could focus on school work and being silly with my friends.
Chatham and Clarendon House Sixth Form – Kent. Sixth form was joint with the partner boys school, which was a refreshing change. I had some great teachers, with a highlight being an incredible maths teacher who made things really easy to understand, but also kept the pace up to maintain the challenge and focus.
I did Maths, Further Maths, Chemistry and Physics A-Levels, and Biology AS-Level – I was lucky to be encouraged to like science from a young age.
Newnham College Cambridge – Natural Sciences MSc. The breadth of the course was amazing; in first year I studied maths, chemistry, physics and physiology (dissection practicals were a highlight!), in second year, I studied chemistry, pharmacology and pathology (I wanted to go into drug discovery), and then in 3rd and 4th year, I studied chemistry.
I had some time out to try and work out what I wanted to do – I interviewed for a lot of trainee patent attorney roles, before gaining a place at the University of Surrey to do a PhD in Chemical and Process Engineering. I was sponsored by a start-up in Guildford and researched wastewater treatment for a process called Hydrothermal Carbonisation (basically pressure cooking waste biomass e.g. sewage, food waste etc to make a fossil coal alternative).
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Qualifications:
GCSEs – Maths, English Literature, English Language, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, French, German, History, Geography, Statistics
AS-Levels – Biology
A-Levels – Maths, Further Maths, Chemistry and Physics
Natural Sciences BA and MSc (bachelors and integrated masters – 4 year course)
PhD in Chemical and Process Engineering
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Work History:
I worked as a kitchen porter (waitress + dishwasher) at a hotel cafe from age 16, until I went to university, at weekends and in school holidays. This meant I could have money to take driving lessons, as well as have freedom with my friends, and to go shopping.
4 week Summer Placement after 2nd year at University – Research Assistant
– Researching effects of drugs on platelet aggregometry
– Blood sample separation, platelet count analysis, and use of thromboxane B2
(TxB2) ELISA1 week internship after 3rd year at University – Patent Attorney Firm
-Learned about patent prosecution through seminars, case studies, and work shadowing
After graduating, while I was searching for a long-term role – School science technician
-Chemistry technician preparing chemicals for lessons in private boarding school.
During my PhD – Part-time work with my PhD sponsor company
I started at ELGA Labwater in January 2022, while I was still writing up my PhD thesis. I worked for 3 years as the R&D Wastewater Specialist (Lead researcher on wastewater remediation projects and product development on the laboratory scale), before moving in January 2025, to be the PURELAB Product Manager.
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Current Job:
PURELAB Product Manager
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Employer:
ELGA Labwater, Veolia
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Nature-loving chemist
What did you want to be after you left school?
Medical researcher
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Not really, I (mostly) played by the rules.
If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?
Travelling the world
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Dua Lipa
What's your favourite food?
Chocolate
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
More time and money to travel, a puppy, more hours in the day for sleep as well as lots of activities
Tell us a joke.
If you have 10 apples in one hand and 10 apples in the other hand, what do you have? Big hands!
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