Having completed an undergraduate masters in Materials Science, I stayed on in Oxford to carry out my DPhil studies under the supervision of Prof. Kyriakos Porfyrakis, looking at the functionalisation of fullerenes for exploitation in biomedical applications and incorporation into molecular machines. I subsequently joined Birmingham as a Lecturer in 2018.
I have presented my work at numerous international conferences and, in 2019, was invited to give a lecture at the London Materials Society and a keynote at IOM3’s Future Materials Conference at the University of Leeds.
My engineering experience started at the end of my school days, spending four years operating CNC milling machines at small precision engineering firm, Lesk Engineers, out of term time. I have had a stint carrying out virtual crash tests at Jaguar Land Rover and am currently Advanced Materials Engineer at P1 Graphene Solutions, a company that incorporates graphene into automotive components.
After first dipping my toes into engaging the public with my research by taking the audience prize at an Oxford local heat of FameLab (2015), I went on to win IOM3’s Literature Review Prize (2016) and finished as runner-up in IOM3’s Young Person’s World Lecture Competition (2017) in Perth, Australia, having won the UK National Final. I won the prize for best presentation at MRS Serbia’s annual YUCOMAT Conference (2017) in Herceg Novi, Montenegro, as well as the elevator pitch competition at the Armourers Alumni Networking Event (2019) at Armourers’ Hall, London. As part of IOM3’s 150th anniversary celebrations (2019), I was recognised as one of their ‘15 under 30’ in Materials World.
I have long been actively involved in efforts to widen participation in higher education, giving talks to and leading activity sessions for school students under-represented at UK universities. I have helped develop LANS’ outreach programme from the ground up. In my efforts to broaden public engagement with scientific research, I am trustee of the charity, Break Off Labs, an innovative online crowdfunding platform for scientific research.
I am a keen sportsman (still playing tennis on a regular basis) and musician (piano is increasingly giving way to traditional Balkan folk music on the accordion), and advocate for the great value training and competing in sport and practising and performing music have on personal and professional development.