Name: Matthew Jarron
Age: 30
Job: Curator of museum collections at Dundee University. This involves not just looking after the collections but also interpreting them through exhibitions, encouraging their use in teaching and online and answering public inquiries among other things.
Salary: More than I'd get working in a normal museum.
What is your background? Undergraduate degree in archaeology; postgraduate degree in museum studies; three years running a local museum in St Andrews, and a couple of stints at the National Museums of Scotland.
What are your working hours? Non-stop. As well as curating, I teach film history, in evening classes and increasingly to under-graduates. I can't remember what weekends are.
What has been your biggest challenge this year? Curating a major exhibition on Patrick Geddes, celebrated interdisciplinary thinker and our first professor of botany. In a moment of insanity, I decided to produce an accompanying book, video and conference... more or less single-handed.
How did you solve it? Sheer enthusiasm. The project had been an ambition of mine for years, so I wasn't going to let things such as lack of time, money and sleep worry me.
What has been your worst moment in university life? The worst times are when you feel that the importance of what you're doing is not acknowledged by those at the top.
What is your office like? I'm about to move to an 18th-century farmhouse building that probably looked quite imposing until somebody built a whacking great university around it. It will overlook the university tennis courts, so I may literally be complaining about the racket.
What university facilities do you use? The art college library is a fantastic resource, and there are lots of interesting public lectures, concerts and exhibitions.
Do you socialise with people at the university? The best thing about my evening classes is meeting fellow film fans, many of whom have become friends.
Who are your most difficult customers? I get endless inquiries from people wanting to know the value of their painting, vase or coin collection. When I tell them that museums aren't allowed to give valuations, some of them get a bit stroppy.
Do you interact much with other parts of the university? Every faculty has its historic collections, so I meet people all over the campus and find out what they think of each other.