chemistry

Rachel McKendry

Rachel McKendry is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Rachel McKendry rather than just read about it. In short: Rachel Anne McKendry is a British chemist. She is Director of i-sense, a UK-based interdisciplinary research collaboration developing early warning sensing systems for infectious diseases, and was part of the UK's Cross Council Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance.

Key takeaways

Rachel McKendry belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Rachel McKendry to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Rachel McKendry from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Rachel Anne McKendry is a British chemist. She is Director of i-sense, a UK-based interdisciplinary research collaboration developing early warning sensing systems for infectious diseases, and was part of the UK's Cross Council Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance. McKendry is also Professor of Biomedical Nanoscience at University College London, holding a joint appointment in the Division of Medicine and the London Centre for Nanotechnology.

Early life and education McKendry studied chemistry at Durham University (Trevelyan College), graduating in 1994. She was awarded a PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1999 and won a Girton College, Cambridge Research Fellowship in 1998.

Career and research After working as a postdoctoral researcher at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, McKendry returned to the UK to take up a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellowship, and to work at University College London. McKendry leads an interdisciplinary research team at the intersection of nanotechnology, telecommunications, big data, infectious diseases and public health. In 2015, she presented a Tedx Talk in Exeter on "The Digital Future of Public Health", in which she discussed early warning systems for disease outbreaks – from SARS to Ebola – being developed along the lines of Google Flu Trends, based on anonymised social media chatter from the world's many billion users of smartphones and other digital devices. She has published many research papers in Nature, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Materials and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. Recent research highlights include nanodiamond quantum materials for ultra-sensitive virus detection, cantilever nanosensors for phenotypic detection of antimicrobial resistance, and deep learning to support quality assurance and decision support of rapid field-based tests. McKendry also led a review of digital technologies in the global public health response to COVID-19.

i-Sense EPSRC IRC McKendry is Director of i-Sense, a large interdisciplinary research collaboration set up in 2013 to develop early warning sensing systems for infectious diseases, and funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council with a total investment of £11 million (renewed from 2018).

Membership of panels On the Steering Group of the Infectious Diseases Research Network, a mainly UK-based collaborative research project which ran between 2002 and 2015 and sought to reduce the toll of infectious diseases on the NHS, especially tuberculosis, health care associated infection, antimicrobial resistance, hepatitis, and sexually transmitted infections. Part of the UK Government's Blackett Review panel on Biological Detection which published its report in February 2014, identifying a number of technologies and capabilities that could improve government's ability to detect and respond to an airborne biological attack or infectious disease outbreak. Formerly an expert to the UK Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology. Co-chaired the Digital Medicine Theme of the Topol Review of the NHS, which published 'Preparing the Healthcare Workforce to Deliver the Digital Future' in 2019.

Awards and honours In 2009 McKendry was awarded the Institute of Physics Clifford Paterson Medal and Prize. In 2014 she received a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, to assist her study of 'New Paradigms in Connected Global Health for Infectious Diseases.' In 2014 she received a Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award for her "scientific achievements, her suitability as a role model and for her exciting proposal to launch a national competition to create mobile phone apps to inspire women to become leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)".

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Rachel McKendry

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Rachel McKendry claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Rachel McKendry before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Rachel McKendry ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Rachel McKendry

In research: Rachel McKendry appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Rachel McKendry in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Rachel McKendry is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge, Alumni of Trevelyan College, Durham, British chemists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Rachel McKendry outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Rachel McKendry in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Rachel McKendry means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Rachel McKendry out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Rachel McKendry in simple terms?

Why does Rachel McKendry matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Rachel McKendry?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Rachel McKendry.