I thought that today I would write about my job.  I would, from time to time, get somebody say to me something like “Oh, I suppose you are off for summer now?”  Which is a legitimate thing to assume, given that undergraduate students have all gone for the summer.  However, I spend only about 20% of my time dealing with undergraduate students.  The following is a list of things I do:

Lecturing undergraduate students

Supervising post-graduate students

Supervising post-doctoral scientists

Writing grant proposals (about 3/4 per year, each one taking about 1-2 weeks to write, depending on the complexity and level of funding involved).

Writing scientific papers (usually about 6-8 per year, each one taking several weeks to write, revise, re-write, deal with editors, deal with reviewers, etc.)

Visiting schools

Doing demonstrations at open days in Maynooth, at the R.D.S., at various secondary schools

Planning future courses, planning curriculum changes, making those changes - I lecture on a total of 8 different degree courses at this stage.

Speaking at international meetings - in the last 12 months I have spoken in Colorado, Brazil, Iowa, Sweden and Ireland. In the next few weeks I will speak at meetings in The Netherlands, Colombia (again) and Canada.  The only one of these meeting that was paid for by the Irish taxpayer was the Iowa meeting.  However, as a result of the Iowa meeting, I proposed to hold a huge conference in Ireland.  This has been accepted and will bring millions to the Irish economy in 2012. I sould suggest that this is a good return on the investment of about 1,000 Euro.

Proof-reading and advising on PhD theses (I have three that I am reading at the moment).

Last year I took four days holidays during the summer.