RESEARCH
Prof Chrissy Hammond
I'm still mildly surprised to have ended up as a scientist, but I'm naturally curious and I love the variety of the job and the fact that I get to spend a lot of my time with my amazing group, collaborators and undergrad students who continually inspire me.
I did Biochemistry at Oxford, but discovered my love of in vivo biology and zebrafish during my PhD at King's College London with Prof Simon Hughes. I had a short postdoc working on chick bone development at the Royal Vet College, then was an EMBO fellow at the Hubrecht Insitute in the Netherlands with Prof Stefan Schulte-Merker. I moved to Bristol to start my lab in 2010 modelling musculoskeletal disease in zebrafish. Since then we've grown to model different aspects that influence the skeleton through life.
Outside of the lab I love hiking, cycling, wild swimming, camping and generally spending as much time outdoors as I can with my family (Mark and my kids Ellie and Felix) and friends. I'm having a bit of a midlife crisis so I've taken up triathlons again (now that I'm too old and broken to play rugby any more) and am enjoying that the kids are old enough to take on adventures (climbing, white water rafting etc) more now.
I love living in Bristol because of the awesome cultural offerings; the great music scene, theatres, poetry slams and the urban paint festival (I love street art) as well as the friendliness of the city and the proximity of green space.
I'm always happy to talk about science so if you're interested in joining the group or setting up a collaboration don't hesitate to drop me an email.