This website has been created to give an overview of the fellowship that I recently completed. Firstly, my background is chemistry, I carried out a masters and PhD in chemistry at the University of Durham. I have a great interest in applied science, in the areas of polymer chemistry and biomaterials. I have experience in the synthesis and functionalisation of various polymeric materials (emulsion-templated porous polymers, electrospun nanofibers and hydrogels) for use in biocatalysis, bioseparations and tissue engineering applications.
My research has involved various interdisciplinary topics interfacing between academia and industry. My goal is to establish myself as an academic scientist and to contribute to the field of Polymer Chemistry.
It was a great privilege to have been awarded a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship in late February 2015 (Project No: 656259, Project Acronym: PoreSelect). It allowed me to broaden my horizons and I moved to Dublin, Ireland a year later to start the project at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland with Prof. Andreas Heise as the principle investigator. The project leading to this application has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 656259
Recently I've been given the opportunity to continue research here at the RCSI with Prof. Heise as a Senior Research Fellow. Currently, I'm investigating a new and exciting area of polymer chemistry, the synthesis of biodegradable polypeptide materials from the ring opening polymerisation of N-Carboxyanhydrides.