Curriculum Vitae
Research experience
- 2023–present: Postdoctoral Research Associate, lab of Luke Mackinder, Centre for Novel Agricultural Products, University of York (UK)
- Carbon Technology Research Foundation (CTRF)-funded: “Developing a universal strategy for pyrenoid-based CO2-concentrating mechanism engineering to enhance CO2 capture in plants and algae”
- Named research co-investigator on the CTRF grant, based on discoveries during my PhD
- Researcher co-lead on the BBSRC sLoLa (from January 2027); named PDRA and PhD supervisor on the Royal Society Faraday Discovery Fellowship (from June 2027)
- 2026: Visiting Research Associate, lab of Ben Engel, Biozentrum, University of Basel (CH) — expansion microscopy
- 2026: Visiting Researcher, lab of Patrick Cai, University of Manchester (UK) — synthetic plastome design (August 2026–Present [part time])
- 2022–present: Research contributor, York Physics of Pyrenoids (YP3) consortium, University of York (UK)
- 2023: Part-time professional internship, Protein Production Technology Facility (Jared Cartwright), University of York (UK) — “Scaling production of large multimeric complexes from algae”
- 2017–2018: ERASMUS-funded research placement, lab of Mikael Rørdam Andersen, Technical University of Denmark (DK) — “Development of a protocol for extraction of genomic DNA from Aspergillus niger for nanopore sequencing”
Education
- 2019–2023: PhD in Mechanistic Biology (White Rose DTP), University of York (UK). Thesis: “Concurrent and convergent evolution of a promiscuous mechanism to phase separate eukaryotic carbon fixation”. Supervisors: Prof. Luke Mackinder and Prof. Mark Leake
- 2015–2019: BSc Biochemistry (with a Year in Europe), University of York (UK) — 1st class honours
Grants & Funding
- Carbon Technology Research Foundation (CTRF) grant, 3 years — named research co-investigator; wrote significant portions of the proposal, produced the figures and provided most of the preliminary data. Collaborative project with Princeton University and the University of Edinburgh (October 2024)
- Engineering Biology Flexible Talent Mobility Account (EngBio FTMA+), £10,000 — sole applicant; collaboration with the lab of Patrick Cai, University of Manchester (February 2026)
- Departmental Research Committee (DRC) funding — one-month visit to the lab of Ben Engel, Biozentrum, University of Basel, to bring expansion microscopy to York (September 2026)
- British Phycological Society Student Travel Bursary — to give an oral presentation at CCM10, Princeton, USA (2022)
Awards
- K.M. Stott Prize for Plant Science, University of York (2023)
- RAD2023 Prize for best turbo talk (2023)
- Manton Prize for best poster presentation, British Phycological Society Winter Meeting (2022)
- Poster Prize, White Rose Mechanistic Biology DTP Symposium (2021)
Publications
A selection of publications is listed below, please refer to my Google scholar profile for a more comprehensive summary.
- Molecular organization of the Chlorella sorokiniana pyrenoid
- A spatial atlas of the seaweed CO2-fixation machinery reveals a unique Rubisco condensation mechanism
- Sticker number modulates pyrenoid condensate assembly to support algal fitness
- Pyrenoid Structure, Function, Evolution, and Characterization Across Diverse Lineages
- A modular high-throughput approach for advancing synthetic biology in the chloroplast of Chlamydomonas
- A promiscuous mechanism to phase separate eukaryotic carbon fixation in the green lineage
- Predicting Rubisco-Linker Condensation from Titration in the Dilute Phase
Conferences & invited talks
- Biozentrum, University of Basel - 2026 [Basel, CH]
- ALPOLE sampling kickoff meeting - 2026 [Sion, CH]
- 1st Satellite Meeting on the Evolution of Photosynthesis, ICPR 2026 satellite event - 2026 [London, UK] (invited talk)
- ICPR - 2026 [Liverpool, UK] (Poster - “Convergent evolution in the eukaryotic CO2-fixing organelle, the pyrenoid”)
- University of York Research Away Day - 2026 [York, UK] (Poster - “Inside the Pyrenoid: How Multivalency Shapes Rubisco Organization and CO₂ Fixation”)
- CCM11, 11th International Symposium on Inorganic Carbon Utilization by Aquatic Photosynthetic Organisms - 2025 [York, UK] (Co-organiser; Talk - “The Chlorella pyrenoid as a universal donor for plant engineering”)
- YSBL cryo-EM technical seminars - 2025 [York, UK] (Talk - symmetry expansion of low-occupancy binders)
- York Physics of Pyrenoids (YP3) knowledge exchange retreat - 2024 [Windermere, UK] (Co-organiser and session chair; Talk - “Convergent evolution of green algal pyrenoids”)
- Genetics of Future Food Production and the Green Revolution 2.0 - 2023 [Newcastle, UK] (Talk - “A promiscuous mechanism to phase separate eukaryotic carbon fixation”)
- University of York Research Away Day - 2023 [York, UK] (Turbo talk; prize winner)
- CCM10, 10th International Symposium on Inorganic Carbon Utilization by Aquatic Photosynthetic Organisms - 2022 [Princeton, NJ] (Talk - “ID of pyrenoid linker proteins in core chlorophytes suggests shared principles for pyrenoid assembly and function”)
- Plastid Preview - 2022 [Norwich, UK] (Talk)
- White Rose Mechanistic Biology DTP Symposium - 2022 [York, UK] (Talk)
- British Phycological Society Winter Meeting - 2022 [Online] (Poster; Manton Prize)
- Festival of Algae 2 - 2022 [Edinburgh, UK] (Poster)
- Combining Algal and Plant Photosynthesis (CAPP) consortium quarterly meetings (5+ talks)
Supervision & mentoring
- Day-to-day guidance of 7 group members’ projects: 1 postdoc, 1 research technician, 4 PhD students (one jointly with Fabien Burki, Uppsala University) and 1 MRes student (current)
- PhD supervisor, Royal Society Faraday Discovery Fellowship (from June 2027)
- Supervising 3 high school students from Los Altos High School (California, USA) on Advanced Science Investigations research projects (current)
- Supervised 3 postgraduate masters students in Chlorella sorokiniana and Thalassiosira pseudonana characterisation (2 now PhD students, at York and Nottingham)
- Supervised 5 undergraduate students on the BPSInet UGIRES summer bioinformatics scheme (2020; one now a PhD student at Cologne)
- Supervised 1 undergraduate on the DAAD RISE scholarship programme
- Hosted visiting researchers: Philippe Van der Stappen (Engel lab, Biozentrum Basel), Tanner Robison, and a one-week work-experience placement
- YSBL PDRA mentor
Collaborations
- Tobias Erb lab (Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Marburg, DE) — chloroplast synthetic biology
- Patrick Cai lab (University of Manchester, UK) — synthetic plastome engineering
- Ben Engel lab (Biozentrum, University of Basel, CH) — expansion microscopy and pyrenoid condensates
- Jonas Blomme lab (Ghent University/VIB, BE) — Ulva CO2-fixation machinery
- Combining Algal and Plant Photosynthesis (CAPP) consortium — active member
Organisation & Outreach
- Tutor at the Gatsby Plant Science Summer School (2024, 2025, 2026)
- Co-organiser, CCM11 (York, 2025)
- Pint of Science 2025 “Planet Earth” session speaker (May 2025) — talk hosted on this website
- Facilitator for primary school microscopy outreach project, organised by Dr. Katy Davis (January 2025)
- Co-organiser and session chair for “What shared Physics of Life principles do we see across pyrenoids from different lineages?” at the York Physics of Pyrenoids (YP3) knowledge exchange retreat (April 2024)
- Creator and curator of PyBase, an open community database for pyrenoid evolution
- Public deposition of protocols, code and raw data on GitHub and Zenodo; preprints explained on Bluesky
- Maintainer of the Mackinder lab website
Software & community resources
- PyBase — open community database of pyrenoid presence/absence and ultrastructure across algae
- ulva_db — integrated Ulva proteomics, RNA and imaging database with interactive explorer
- FLIPPer — Fast Linker Identification Pipeline for Pyrenoids
- RubiCon — phase-separation analysis of LAMMPS molecular dynamics simulations of Rubisco–linker systems
- OxySolve — oxygen-evolution analysis for Hansatech electrodes (used by other groups)
- SEC_Fit — Gaussian peak fitting for size-exclusion chromatography
- GG-calc — MoClo Golden Gate assembly calculator
- Canary — open hardware and firmware for networked CO2/O2 monitoring of growth chambers
Skills
- Practical
- Biomolecular interactions: SPR, MST, co-IP mass spectrometry, mass photometry
- Structural biology: cryo-EM, NMR
- Synthetic biology: Golden Gate (MoClo) assembly, biolistics, synthetic plastome design
- Biophysics and microscopy: single-molecule imaging, FRAP, super-resolution confocal, expansion microscopy
- Protein biochemistry: recombinant expression (E. coli, P. pastoris), purification, phase-separation assays, oxygen evolution
- Algal biology: culture, transformation, extraction
- Computational
- Cryo-EM processing in RELION on the Viking HPC cluster, including symmetry expansion of low-occupancy binders
- Omics: RNA-seq, quantitative proteomics (DIA-NN, Spectronaut, limma), genome annotation, machine-learning localisation prediction
- Simulation and image analysis: LAMMPS, custom image-analysis pipelines
- Software and database development: Python, R, Dash, PostgreSQL/Supabase
- Instrumentation: ESP32 and Raspberry Pi Pico firmware for lab monitoring
- Visual communication: publication figures in Affinity Designer
Peer Review
- More than 5 manuscripts reviewed for eLife, PNAS, Nature Plants, Plant Physiology and Scientific Reports
Professional Memberships
- Genetics Society
- British Phycological Society