My office is like Victoria Station

Name: Hamid Jahankhani

Age: 45

Job: Senior lecturer, School of Computing and Technology, University of East London.

Salary: About £40,000.

What is your background? PhD at Queen Mary, University of London, where I worked as a research associate. Then I joined a computer animation training company in Vancouver, Canada, where I became vice-president. In 1999, I returned to the UK as a computing lecturer at UEL.

What are your working hours? Teaching, research, knowledge-transfer activity and administration add up to 50 hours a week on average. Weekends can be busy too - I organised the first International Conference on Global e-Security (ICGeS 05) at UEL in April. I have set aside a full day every week to supervise 12 MSc dissertation and five MPhil/PhD research students.

What has been your biggest challenge this year? 2005 is proving challenging all round. The launch of the MSc programme proved more successful than anticipated, and I have to select September's intake from hundreds of applicants. As well as ICGeS 05, I organised a team of undergraduates to enter the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts Futurelab's Design Challenge 2005 (we were joint winners), and exhibited at the InfoSecurity exhibition. The only bugbear was preparing our subject area for institutional audit.

How did you solve it? Perseverance, hard work and a cool head.

What has been your worst moment in university life? I am very lucky that I have yet to have a worst moment.

What is your office like? It is often like Victoria Station, with students and colleagues dropping in at all hours.

What university facilities do you use? Refectory, car park and, occasionally, the student union shop.

Do you socialise with people at the university? Continually - but not in an organised way.

Who are your most difficult customers? I would say "challenging" rather than "difficult", as there are students with special needs who require diligence and attention.

Best excuses for bad behaviour? A grovelling apology usually works.

Do you interact much with other parts of the university? Yes, especially Knowledge Dock, UEL's business services and knowledge-transfer arm, and my wonderful colleagues in corporate marketing.