About
I am a post-doctoral research associate in the Mackinder lab at the University of York. I completed my Ph.D in November 2023, presenting a thesis entitled “Convergent and concurrent evolution of a promiscuous mechanism to phase separate eukaryotic carbon fixation”. During this time, I was lucky to be supervised by Professor Luke Mackinder and Professor Mark Leake, who encouraged a ‘blue-sky’ approach to science. This allowed me to develop my interests at the interface of pyrenoid biology, synthetic biology and plant engineering.
Interests
My main interest is in characterising pyrenoid components and their evolution with a view to understanding how they can be used to guide synthetic biology engineering approaches in plants.
Funding
I am currently funded by the Carbon Technology Research Foundation (CTRF) as part of a collaborative project with the University of Princeton and University of Edinburgh. We aim to build on a recent discovery of a promiscuous pyrenoid linker protein from Chlorella sorokiniana to develop a “Universal strategy for pyrenoid-based CO2-concentrating mechanism engineering to enhance CO2 capture in plants and algae.”
