Dr David Jones (Postdoctoral Associate)

David completed his doctoral training, in the area of organophosphorus chemistry, under the joint supervision of Dr Eileen O’Leary (Munster Technological University) and Dr Timothy O’Sullivan (University College Cork, UCC) in 2018. David then worked concurrently as a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr Gerard McGlacken (UCC) in the general areas of metal nanoparticle catalysis and homogeneous C–H activation, as part of an Eli Lilly Research Award Program (LRAP), and as an associate lecturer in the School of Pharmacy, UCC.

Dr Vera Demertzidou (Postdoctoral Associate)

Vera was born and raised in Greece and she completed her undergraduate degree, Masters and doctoral training at the Department of Chemistry of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki under the supervision of Associate Professor Alexandros Zografos. Her Masters and PhD Thesis were focused on natural product synthesis and more specifically on the divergent and collective synthesis of furosesquiterpenoids and sesquiterpene lactones through common scaffold establishment. She joined the Lawrence group in May 2021 to pursue ways to develop new enantioconvergent multicomponent reactions.

Kimberley Dodds (PhD Student)

Kimberley grew up in Falkirk and obtained her MChem from the University of Edinburgh. She carried out her final year project in the Campopiano group exploring thermostable transaminase biocatalysts and then conducted a short summer project developing biocatalytic routes to industrially relevant compounds. Kimberley is undertaking her PhD studies in the field of transaminase biocatalysts with our industrial partner Johnson Matthey, under the joint supervision of Prof. Lawrence and Prof. Campopiano. Outside of her studies, Kimberley is a competitive bowler who is part of the ladies and junior ladies Scotland International team.

Adam Lockyer (PhD Student)

Adam completed his MChem at the University of Lincoln in 2021. He worked on the synthesis and self-sorting capabilities of lanthanide-salen complexes under the supervision of Dr Guzman Gil-Ramírez. After the completion of his MChem, Adam joined the Lawrence group to undertake a PhD studying the total synthesis of complex natural products.

Tomás Vieira de Castro (PhD Student)

Tomas completed his undergraduate degree in Medicinal and Biological Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh in 2018. He conducted his final year research project in the Lawrence group investigating the mechanism of a complex biomimetic domino reaction sequence. Following the completion of his degree, Tomas moved to Australia to work in the group of Prof. Jonathan George at the University of Adelaide, working towards an MPhil degree in the area of natural product synthesis. Tomas returned to Edinburgh to begin his PhD studies in September 2022.

Tristan Smolarski (PhD Student)

Tristan graduated from his undergraduate studies at the École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Mulhouse (ENSCMu) in 2022. During his studies, he joined Spirochem AG to work on the synthesis of complex scaffolds. He then visited the University of Berkeley, California under the supervision of Prof. Richmond Sarpong, where he worked on the synthesis of prostratin.  Tristan joined the Lawrence group to undertake a PhD studying the biomimetic total synthesis of natural products.

Aobo Gu (PhD Student)

Aobo Gu completed his undergraduate degree in chemistry at Sun Yat-sen University in China. During his master’s degree at the University of Birmingham, he conducted a drug screening project on leukaemia under the supervision of Dr Alan Jones. He joined the Lawrence group in 2023, focusing on the total synthesis of biologically active natural products. Outside of the research lab, Aobo enjoys practicing the piano and diving.

Allison Findlay (Undergraduate Project Student)

Allison grew up just outside Glasgow and is a Fifth year Medicinal and Biological MChem Student at the University of Edinburgh. She is joining the Lawrence Group to complete her 5P master’s project which involves the biomimetic total synthesis of a dimeric natural product, isolated from a marine derived fungus.

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Past PhD and PDRA Members

Dr Steven Bennett (Postdoctoral Fellow 2021-2023)

Dr François Richard (Postdoctoral Fellow 2021-2023)

Dr Andrew Tiberia (PhD Student 2018-2023)

Dr Jacob Bestwick (PhD Student 2018-2022)

Dr Jake Stuart (PhD Student 2018-2022)

Dr Helen Jones (PhD Student 2017-2021)

Dr Catherine McKenna (PhD Student 2017-2021)

Dr Joshua Homer (Postdoctoral Fellow 2018-2021)

Dr Katherine Law (Postdoctoral Fellow 2018-2020)

Dr Robert Godfrey (PhD Student 2014-2019, Postdoctoral Fellow 2019-2020)

Dr Peter DaBell (PhD Student 2015-2019)

Dr Marie Thomson (PhD Student 2015-2018)

Dr Irene De Silvestro (PhD Student 2014-2017)

Dr Nicholas Green (Postdoctoral Research Fellow 2016-2017)

Dr Patrick Brown (PhD Student 2013-2016)

Past Undergraduate Students and Visitors

Maxwell Etherington (Visiting Student 2023 – Australian National University)

Kacper Patej (Undergraduate Summer Student 2022)

Ben Coles (MSc Project Student 2022)

Caspar Lamborelle (Visiting Student 2022 – TU Berlin)

Lorna Minty (Undergraduate Project Student 2021-2022)

Annika Wegner-Repke (Undergraduate Project Student 2021-2022)

Shane Barrett Kavanagh (Visiting Student 2021 – Trinity College Dublin)

Lewis Halsall (MSc Project Student 2021)

Rosie Street-Jeakings (Research Student 2018-2020)

Mária Štiblariková (Visiting PhD Student 2020-2021 – Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava)

Panagiotis Kalomenopoulos (Undergraduate Project Student 2020-2021)

Baekman Kim (Undergraduate Project Student 2020-2021)

Sujlesh Sharma (MSc Project Student 2020)

Eilidh Matheson (Undergraduate Project Student 2019-2020)

Kristian Chambers (Undergraduate Project Student 2019-2020)

Naruhiro Gondo (Visiting Student 2019 – Kyoto University)

Elliot Davenport (Undergraduate Project Student 2018-2019)

Charlotte O’Donnell (Undergraduate Project Student 2018-2019)

Chenfei He (Undergraduate Project Student 2018-2019)

Farjana Afroj (MSc Project Student 2019)

Victor Borba (Visiting Student 2019 – University of Ottawa)

Fraser Milne (Undergraduate Summer Student 2019)

Jake Stuart (Undergraduate Project Student 2017-2018)

Maciej Kucharski (Undergraduate Project Student 2017-2018)

Tomas Vieira De Castro (Undergraduate Project Student 2017-2018)

Ioanna Nakou (MSc Project Student 2017)

Koen Rietdijk (Undergraduate Project Student 2016-2017)

Catherine Connolly (Undergraduate Project Student 2016-2017)

Rhiann Ankers (Undergraduate Project Student 2015-2016)

Connie Buettner (Undergraduate Project Student 2015-2016)

Duncan MacDonald (Undergraduate Project Student 2015-2016)

Rebecca Burns (Undergraduate Project Student 2014-2015)

Becky Gerrard (Undergraduate Project Student 2014-2015)

Kiera Mehigan (Undergraduate Project Student 2014-2015)