My first month: What’s it like to join the Xelect team?

By Dr Paolo Ruggeri, Scientific Officer.

It’s already been a month since I started my new adventure at Xelect and it has confirmed my first impressions from when I first came to St Andrews for my job interview.

Xelect is like a family of people who really care about you and I feel very happy that I joined. Despite starting at Xelect in the middle of the COVID pandemic emergency I’ve found it extremely easy to adapt to my new role thanks to my colleagues. They are amazing people from both a human and professional point of view. 

I come from an academic background, as I worked for several public Universities and Institutes as a postdoctoral researcher for almost 10 years. My current duties as a Scientific Officer are mostly related to both laboratory and analytical activities. I have to admit that I really enjoy this balance between practical (lab) and theoretical (data analysis) tasks. I get to manage multiple projects on a wide variety of marine and freshwater species. Most importantly this new role makes me feel more “useful” because at the end of the day I know that I produced something that can have an immediate impact for lots of people.