Tuesday afternoon I attend analysis seminars, where colleagues present recent work. It is a chance to keep in touch with adjacent areas of research, present one's own work and exchange ideas. Tuesday afternoons are analysis research seminars. We also run more informal research seminars where a few of us with common interests discuss ideas. I try to reserve other afternoons for my own research but this is difficult to achieve.
Students calling, administrative work and committee meetings all take time too.
I leave the office at 5.30pm with a heavy bag and a hopeful list of tasks that I might tackle in the evening. The days are hectic, work spills into weekends and holidays but, by and large, I love it - the feedback from students, the excitement of a new result and the constant learning process that one has to undergo to keep abreast of the job. Luckily I went to UCD, where one specialises in third year, leaving me time to become enamoured with mathematics. B.Sc. in 1985 and an M.Sc. in 1986. I was awarded my Ph. D. from UCD in 1990 under the supervision of Professor S. Dineen.