I am an Associate Professor in Environmental Engineering within the UCL Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering. I am an environmental microbiologist, so I have a life science background, which is unusual for my department. I lead a group of researchers studying how microbes interact and live with us in indoor spaces including hospitals, offices and transport vehicles. We have a lab which includes all of the usual microbiology equipment but also an environmental chamber the size of a 16 m2 room. We can replicate spaces like offices or hospital bed spaces in the chamber and control ventilation, temperature and humidity to observe how microbes settle out of the air and live on surfaces. We also study how engineering solutions, such as different ventilation strategies, air filters or antimicrobial surfaces, can reduce the numbers of microbes in indoor environments.