Stuart Astle

University of Oxford

Stuart is from Carlisle in Cumbria and obtained his MChem from the University of Oxford. Having completed his Masters under the supervision of Prof. Jeremy Robertson he joined the Synthesis for Biology and Medicine CDT in Oxford, working for Professor Jonathan Burton towards the total synthesis of anthraquinone natural products. A keen (albeit talentless) footballer, he can often be found playing or watching football; however, when not preoccupied by either "The Beautiful Game" or chemistry, he enjoys running, cycling, and hiking.

Charlotte Lorton

University of Paris-Saclay Institut de Chimie des Substances CNRS

Charlotte graduated in 2017 from the University of Paris-Saclay with a Master’s degree in organic chemistry and a Magister's degree in molecular physical chemistry. She then obtained her Ph.D. diploma under the supervision of Dr. Voituriez at ICSN (CNRS, France). Her studies focused on the development of methodologies using phosphine organocatalysis, especially tandem “Michael Addition/Wittig olefination” reactions. In February 2021, she moved to Liverpool to start a postdoctoral position in the Bower group in collaboration with Dr. Chris Russell at the University of Bristol. She is working on the development of gold(III)-catalysed Suzuki cross-couplings. 

Daniel Kovari

University of Birmingham

Daniel Kovari was born in Hungary. He did his Bachelor studies in Chemistry at the Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest and his Master studies in Pharmaceutical Engineering at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in Hungary. He started his PhD in 2018 at the University of Birmingham in the iDESIGN project, under the supervision of Dr Liam R. Cox and Dr Kimberley A. Roper. For the second half of his project, in the beginning of 2020, he moved to Berlin in Germany to work at their industrial partner, AnalytiCon Discovery GmbH. under the supervision of Dr Oliver Kunz. In the meantime, he is in the final stages of his thesis writing and he is getting ready for submission.

Rebecca Craik

St. Andrews University

Rebecca grew up in the south of France and graduated with a MChem from the Ecole Nationale Superieure de Chimie de Montpellier (ENSCM) in France. Throughout her course she had the opportunity to various industrial placements in Sanofi (Vitry sur Seine, France), GSK (Stevenage, UK) and Arran Chemicals (Athlone, Ireland). She is now in her final year of PhD working for Professor Andy Smith at the University of St-Andrews. Her work is focusing on developing new asymmetric processes involving isochalcogenourea catalysis. Outside of work she enjoys going to the gym, seeing friends and family and a nice glass of wine. 

Matthew Williams

University of Glasgow

Matthew graduated from the University of St Andrews in 2018 with an MChem, carrying out his final year project with Prof Andrew Smith on enantioselective ammonium enolate catalysis. In October 2018 Matthew joined the University of Glasgow to carry out his PhD under the supervision of Dr Alistair Boyer, where he is working on the development of 1-sulfonyl-1,2,3-triazole methodology. In his spare time Matthew enjoys football, playing the drums and listening to music.

Tom D'Arcy

University of Loughborough

Tom grew up in Derbyshire, and completed his undergraduate degree with a year in industry at the University of Nottingham. He is now in the final year of his PhD studies at Loughborough University, investigating oxaziridinium organocatalysis.

Giordaina Hartley

University of York

Giordaina completed her undergraduate degree at Teesside University, with an industrial placement year at the pharmaceutical company Covance. She completed her MSc by research at the University of York as part of the O’Brien group and stayed on to undertake a PhD. Her research focused on the a- and B-arylation of cyclic sulfoximines. She is now a postdoc in the group, working on inhibitors of the Nsp3 macrodomain of SARS-CoV-2. In her spare time, Giordaina enjoys pole fitness, aerial hoop, aerial silks, trapeze, contortion, playing guitar and playing keyboard.

James Bowen

University of Bristol

James graduated from the University of Birmingham in 2018 with a MSci in Chemistry with Industrial Experience, having spent one year working at GSK in Stevenage. In his final year he investigated gold catalysed polycyclisation cascades of ynamides under the supervision of Dr. Paul Davies, for which he was awarded the Alfred Bader Prize. He then moved to the University of Bristol to join the Chemical Synthesis CDT and is currently in the final year of his PhD studies with Professors Chris Willis and Matt Crump, investigating the biosynthesis of polyketide natural products.

Joe Higham

Imperial College London

Joe Higham obtained his MSci degree from University College London. During his final year, under the supervision of Prof Tom Sheppard, he undertook a research project working with halogenated diols and their use as potential organocatalysts. Joe is currently working towards his PhD at Imperial College London with Dr James Bull, developing new oxidative couplings for the efficient synthesis of medicinally relevant building blocks. He previously undertook a UROP placement with the Bull group working on C(sp3)-H activation of heterocycles.

Laura Winfrey

University of Leicester

Laura grew up in Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire. She obtained an MChem with a year abroad (USA) from the University of Leicester in 2019, where she worked for Dr. Alex Pulis during her Master's year. After being awarded an EPSRC-studentship, she remained in the Pulis group and is currently a third year PhD student investigating borane-catalysis in the synthesis of amines.

Paul Leeson

Paul Leeson Consulting

Paul Leeson is a medicinal chemist with >35 years’ experience of drug discovery and development in senior roles in several major pharmaceutical companies.  While at Smith Kline and French, Merck Sharp and Dohme, Wyeth (USA), AstraZeneca, and GlaxoSmithKline, Paul contributed to numerous projects in the cardiovascular, neuroscience, respiratory and inflammation therapy areas.  His drug discovery contributions are documented in >160 publications and patents. 

Paul has a PhD from the University of Cambridge and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) and a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS).  Since 2015 he is Honorary Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham.

Greg Iacobini

Sygnature Discovery

Greg completed his MChem at the University of Warwick in 2007 and stayed on to study for his PhD with Professor Michael Shipman, working on the use of diazetidines for the synthesis of 1,2-diamines. In 2012, he joined Sygnature Discovery as a medicinal chemist. Over the last 10 years he has progressed to a project leader role, managing a number of client projects in diverse target classes including kinase's and ion-channels.