After finishing my PhD in bio-inorganic chemistry, I joined Unilever research & development as head of the Optical Spectroscopy department. The nice thing about starting in Analysis was it gave me a broad overview of the projects going on in the company. You do analysis for foods, for laundry, for the factories. As my group grew from three to ten people we expanded in the number of techniques we used. The downside for me was that the role was very locally focussed and I wanted to see more of the business. In discussing this with my line-manager an opportunity arose to move to laundry research as a project leader.
The intriguing thing about laundry research was that I could follow the development of a product from the original idea all the way to the product on the shelves. In South Africa we visited the factory where the product that we designed would be produced and talked to the people there. They were so thrilled to work with the researchers who had been involved at the very beginning of the process.
After a few years in laundry I joined a group called New Futures. New Futures was looking at completely new ways of washing. These were unheard of processes at the time. The first subject the team I led tackled there was washing with liquid carbon-dioxide, as opposed to washing with water. Then, seeing as more and more clothes are fitted with an identification chip or electronic barcode, we speculated what the implications for home laundry might be if every item were to have such a chip. It’s really thinking out of the box, looking into the future. We were able to visualise our ideas in the Laundry Room of the Living Tomorrow, Home of the Future exhibition in Amsterdam, which we set up together with Bosch Siemens and Logica-CMG. It is thrilling to work with other companies. They have a completely different way of working so you learn so much. I enjoyed that collaboration so much I’ve taken on the role as Jet-Net project co-ordinator. Jet-Net is a Dutch collaboration between businesses and high schools to stimulate education in technology and science. I’m the Unilever face to other companies.
When laundry research was moved out of Vlaardingen, I had the opportunity to pursue my career within Foods research & development. It was also exciting to discover that the expertise I had gained in laundry could be applied to food research. That kind of research is often about emulsions and interfaces. Whether they’re for washing or for eating, from a scientific perspective doesn’t really matter.
