2023 Cohort

• Rosa Altarelli (MChem)
  Graduated from the University of Leeds in 2023. During her final year research project, she worked with Professor Steve Marsden on the replacement of precious metals in the photochemical racemisation of amines. For this, she worked on developing a set of optimised conditions, and applying this to dynamic kinetic resolution, for the sustainable synthesis of chiral amine drugs.
• Lizzie Bailey (MSci)
  Graduated from the University of York in 2023. During her final year, she undertook a placement at Charles River (Cambridge) in the Medicinal Chemistry department. Her placement involved the synthesis of small, novel molecules as part of three different projects in various stages of drug discovery.
• Jordan Barker (MChem)
  Graduated from Newcastle University in 2023. During his final year project, he worked under the supervision of Dr Erli Lu investigating the syntheses, structures and reactivity of monomeric alkali metal silylbenzyl complexes.
• Richard Cox (MChem)
  Graduated from the University of Sheffield in 2023. During his final year project, he worked under the supervision of Prof. Iain Coldham developing a condensation-cyclisation-cycloaddition cascade for the synthesis of tropane alkaloids.
• Marc Del Olmo Garcia (MSc)
  Graduated in Organic Chemistry from the University of Barcelona in 2019. During his final year project, he worked under the supervision of Professor Pere Romea investigating the scope of stereoselective radical reactions through the use of titanium(IV) enolates. In 2019, he started working in Industrial Quimica Lasem as an R&D Chemist until May 2023.
• Melissa Dyson (MChem)
  Graduated from the University of Sussex in 2022. During her final year research project, she worked with Prof. Mark Bagley on the synthesis of natural product inspired 4-quinolones for the treatment of Chagas disease. In Melissa’s third year as an undergraduate, she completed a placement year at AstraZeneca, Gothenburg, where she carried out high-throughput biocatalytic screening of company project compounds, under the supervision of Prof. Martin Hayes.
• Juliette Gregg (MSci)
  Graduated from University of Bristol in 2023. During her final year research project she worked under the supervision of Professor Varinder K. Aggarwal investigating the synthesis of novel spiro-azetidine carbonates from the strain release compound 1-azobicylco[1.1.0]butane. During the summer of 2021 she undertook an RSC studentship in the lab of Professor Jonathan Clayden, extracting (-)-sparteine from Lupus arboreus.
• Matthew Horwood (MSci)
  Graduated from the University of Birmingham in 2023 where he completed a masters project on multi stimuli responsive foldamers in the group of Dr Sarah Pike. During his 3rd year he also completed an industrial placement at GSK Stevenage in the medicinal chemistry department working on the synthesis of potential drug molecules.
• Vidya Jose (BSMS)
  Graduated from Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Trivandrum (IISER-TVM) in 2023, with an Integrated BSMS degree in Chemistry (Major) and Biology (Minor). She completed her master's project under Dr. Ramesh Rasappan on the synthesis of substituted vinylsilanes using Ni-catalysed cross coupling of α-bromo carbonyl compounds, alkynes and a silyl compound.
• Benjamin Kelly (MSci)
  Graduated from the University of Bristol in 2023. Ben completed his final year research project under the supervision of Professor Matthew Crump, investigating the biosynthetic pathway of the food-borne mitochondrial toxin bongkrekic acid. In 2022, he completed a training week at GSK, where he synthesised a medically relevant lead compound. During the summer of 2021, he was employed as a quality control chemical analyst working with veterinary APIs.

• Harry Meats (MChem)
  Graduated from the University of Sheffield in 2022. During his final year, he worked with Dr Ben Partridge on developing copper-catalysed arylation reactions using aryl boronic acids. Prior to this, he completed an RSC-funded summer project with Prof. Joe Harrity where he worked on alternative synthetic routes towards ynone trifluoroborates. He then spent a year at the biotechnology company Illumina where he applied synthetic chemistry techniques to DNA sequencing.
• Shubham Ojha (MRes)
  Graduated from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Trivandrum in 2023. For his final year project, he worked with Dr Basudev Sahoo on Visible light Photoredox catalysis. He helped develop a novel methodology for photocatalyzed alkylative cyclization of N-Acrylamides of N-Heteroarenes and Arylamines.
• Anjaly Rajeev (MSc)
  Graduated from Sacred Heart College Thevara (affiliated to Mahatma Gandhi University) in 2021. She worked as a Junior Research Fellow(JRF) in a collaborative work under Dr Franklin John on the synthesis of SERS active organic compounds for image-based diagnosis, funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and KSHEC Govt. of Kerala.
• William Terry-Wright (MSci)
  Graduated from the University of Bristol in 2023. During his final year project he investigated the photochemical ring expansion of pyridines to azepines and was awarded the Richard Dixon prize for best student on the F103 course. Additionally, during the summers of 2022 and 2023 he completed projects in the Clayden lab investigating the extraction of (-)-sparteine from Lupins and in the Lennox lab, using electrochemical methods to improve natural product synthesis.