{"id":236499,"date":"2025-10-23T11:06:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T10:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/?p=236499"},"modified":"2025-10-23T12:34:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T11:34:46","slug":"meet-the-team-sophie-revisit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/2025\/10\/meet-the-team-sophie-revisit\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the team: Sophie"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sophie Spencer has recently been promoted to Senior Events Manager in EMBL\u2019s European Bioinformatics Institute\u2019s Training team. We last interviewed her in late 2021<\/a>, so let\u2019s catch up with Sophie and see what she\u2019s been up to since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sophie Spencer, Senior Events Manager, EMBL-EBI. Image credit: Jeff Dowling\/EMBL-EBI<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We last spoke to you in 2021. What has changed for you in the last four years in the training team?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be brief\u2026 a lot! I went from working solely on the Training team\u2019s core programme to supporting EMBL-EBI\u2019s Industry Programme Workshops in 2024. Most recently, I\u2019ve stepped into the role of Senior Events Manager, where I now split my time between the Industry and Training teams at EMBL-EBI. This is the perfect blend for me \u2013 I get to work on a really dynamic portfolio of events that I\u2019m passionate about, while reconnecting with the (fantastic) training team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What part of the new role are you most excited about?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I love about event management is that no two challenges are ever the same \u2014 you\u2019re always finding creative ways to make things work. Now that I\u2019m working across two teams, I get to see how different people approach things, and it\u2019s really fun to bring those ideas together and find solutions that work for everyone.

On top of that, I now line manage two brilliant Event Officers, which is incredibly rewarding and adds a whole new dimension to my role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there anything you are passionate about as an events professional you\u2019d like to share with us?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think that the events industry, but in particular event managers, have a real responsibility to make our events as sustainable as possible. This is something that I\u2019ve cared deeply about throughout my career, and it\u2019s exciting to see how fast things are evolving in this space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sustainability isn\u2019t a one-and-done task – it\u2019s constantly shifting as new technologies, ideas, and best practices emerge. Staying on top of these changes is essential, and that\u2019s where collaboration really helps.

As part of my new role, I\u2019ve been able to get involved with various steering groups across our EMBL sites, and the Wellcome Genome Campus to discuss sustainability. It\u2019s been fascinating to learn from other teams about what they\u2019ve been doing to \u2018go green\u2019 and taking ideas back to my teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And who knows, there might be a new free on-demand course about green computing popping up on the EMBL-EBI Training pages soon\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell us more about the EMBL-EBI Industry Programme.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a really unique initiative we have here at EMBL-EBI. The programme brings together our Industry Partners<\/a> to collaborate and share insights in a pre-competitive space. Our members include most of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies, as well as leading agri-food, nutrition, and healthcare organisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each year, we host around 10 workshops, which collectively attract more than 2,000 participants. What makes the programme special is that the topics are chosen by our members, so every workshop focuses on real challenges and emerging trends that matter most to industry right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re curious to learn more, I\u2019d definitely encourage you to visit the Industry Programme website.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And finally, tell us something about you that people might not know?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a tricky one\u2026 I wish I could say I was a secret Ironman champion or something equally impressive, but in reality, I\u2019m much more of a parkrun kind of girl!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something people might not know is that I\u2019m a massive bookworm, and if I\u2019m honest, a bit of a nerd. I\u2019ve lost count of how many times I\u2019ve watched the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings, and I can\u2019t resist a good epic fantasy. Brandon Sanderson is definitely my favourite author at the moment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sophie Spencer has recently been promoted to Senior Events Manager in EMBL\u2019s European Bioinformatics Institute\u2019s Training team. We last interviewed her in late 2021, so let\u2019s catch up with Sophie and see what she\u2019s been up to since then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":239775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8606],"tags":[8018,9802,12539,8542],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-236499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meet-the-embl-events-team","tag-embl-events-team","tag-embl-ebi-training","tag-embl-ebi-training-team","tag-meet-the-team"],"acf":[],"embl_taxonomy_terms":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-content\/uploads\/Soph.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236499"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239773,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236499\/revisions\/239773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236499"},{"taxonomy":"embl_taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/embl_taxonomy?post=236499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}