People

Our group members

Current Members

Prof. Scott L Cockroft

Scott was born and raised in Calderdale, West Yorkshire. He joined the School of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh in 2007 as lecturer and was promoted to Professor in 2019 as Personal Chair of Supramolecular Chemistry. Prior to this he conducted postdoctoral work with Prof. M. Reza Ghadiri at The Scripps Research Institute, California (2006-2007) and his PhD with Prof. Christopher A. Hunter FRS at the University of Sheffield (2002-2006). He is the recipient of an ERC Starting Grant 2013-2018, a 2016 Philip Leverhulme Prize, the 2017 RSC Bob Hay Lectureship, and the 2024 van der Waals prize (Young Scientist) for his studies of non-covalent interactions. His eyes are often "funny" due to suffering from myasthenia gravis.

Scott Cockroft

BBSRC 24TRT Postdoc

Postdoc, 2025–2027

Postdoc to join the Cockroft group in 2025 to work in collaboration with Sander Granneman on the synthesis of ribosome binding compounds.

Postdoc

Dr Krzysztof Bąk

Postdoc, 2022-

Krzysztof joined the Cockroft group in 2022 and is a working on transmembrane molecular machine synthesis/assembly and patch-clamp characterisation. Previously he undertook a Postdoc with Prof. Paul Beer at the University of Oxford.

Dr Krzysztof Bąk

Dr Daniel Edwards

Postdoc, 2024–, PhD Student 2020-2024

Dan joined the group as a postdoc in 2024 to develop super-resolution microscopy techniques for the analysis of transmembrane systems working in collaboration with Prof. Mathew Horrocks. Dan obtained an MChem from the University of Lincoln where he spent a year in industry designing protein PEGylation methods for the application in biopharmaceuticals. He completed his PhD working with Prof. Scott Cockroft and Dr Amanda Jarvis. His PhD investigated the discovery of pore-forming peptides and the synthetic modification of transmembrane proteins. Dan enjoys exploring the Scottish highlands and islands by foot and by bike and is a keen badminton player.

Daniel Edwards

Tim Spankie

PhD Student, 2021–2025, writing up

Tim secured an EASTBIO PhD studentship to join the group in 2021 to study the computational electrophysiology of transmembrane molecular machines, working in collaboration with Ulrich Zachariae (School of Life Sciences, Dundee). When not computing he enjoys some recurve Archery, embracing his Nottinghamshire roots, or extremely uncompetitive Table-tennis!

Tim Spankie

Dongning Sheng

PhD Student, 2022-

Dongning joined the Cockroft group from Beijing University of Chemical Technology, where he worked on catalysis projects both from a synthetic and computational perspective. He is currently working on new methods of OH-group bioconjugation. Dongning enjoys playing classic video games such as ‘Touhou Project’ and watching anime.

Dongning Sheng

Beth Raynor

PhD student, 2024-

Beth joined the group from the University of Lincoln, after spending a year in industry at SGS quay pharmaceuticals on placement. She is working on the examining electron delocalisation in molecular interactions. Beth enjoys playing a variety of sport, recently picking up squash as the new intermural captain!

Beth Raynor

Botond Gémesi

PhD student, 2024-

Botond joined the group to work on the design and synthesis of receptors for small molecules. He obtained his MChem in 2022 from the University of Edinburgh where he completed his final-year project on artificial metalloenzymes with Dr Amanda Jarvis. He started his PhD in 2024, following work at Almac and Biosynth on peptide synthesis. In his spare time, Botond enjoys hillwalking and playing video games.

Botond Gémesi

Graduated PhD Students (and destinations)

Dr Louis Gravillier
Graduating 2025

Dr Ivan Smoliar
Graduated 2025
Postdoc with Matthew Langton (Oxford University, UK)

Dr Daniel Edwards
Graduated 2024
Postdoc with Cockroft/Horrocks Group (University of Edinburgh, UK)

Dr Andrew West
Graduated 2022
Postdoc with ‪Kurt Gothelf (University of Aarhus, Denmark)

Dr Alex Elmi
Graduated 2021
Research Scientist, Sygnature (Nottingham, UK)

Dr Rebecca Burns
Graduated 2020
Student Adviser (School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, UK)
Previously, Assistant Professor (Heriot Watt, UK)

Dr Nicole Meredith
Graduated 2019
Formulation Scientist at Lonza (Livingston, UK)

Dr Qingshu Zheng
Graduated 2019
Assistant Research Fellow (Group leader/Lecturer at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China)
Previously, postdoc (Fudan University, China)

Dr Dominic Pascoe
Graduated 2018
Postgrad Medicine (St. Andrews/Dundee, UK)

Dr Antoine Bader
Graduated 2018
ATDBio (Oxford, UK)

Dr Nicholas Dominelli Whiteley
Graduated 2017
Postgrad Medicine (St. Andrews/Dundee, UK)
Previously, postdoc with Marcey Waters (University of North Carolina, USA)

Dr Justinas Slikas
Graduated 2017
Senior Scientist at Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Science Solutions, Lithuania
Previously, Research scientist at Base4 Innovation (Cambridge, UK)
Previously, postdoc with James Murray (Imperial, UK)

Dr Kamila Muchowska
Graduated 2016
Associate at McKinsey, London
Formerly, Chargée de Recherche (group leader at CNRS University of Strasbourg, France)
Previously, postdoc with Joseph Moran (CNRS University of Strasbourg, France)

Dr Thomas Hubbard
Graduated 2015
Synthetic Chemist at Innospec

Dr Catherine Adam
Graduated 2015
Postdoc with Asier Unciti-Broceta (Edinburgh, UK)
Previously, postdoc with Jonathan Clayden (Manchester/Bristol, UK)

Dr Matthew Watson
Graduated 2015
Postdoc with Roman Tuma and Sheena Radford (Leeds, UK)

Dr James Brown
Graduated 2014

Dr Lixu Yang
Graduated 2012
Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (Chongqing University, China)
Previously, postdoc with Neil Champness (Nottingham, UK)

Dr Ma Long
Graduated 2012 (co-supervised with Prof. Anita Jones)
Postdoc with Prof. David O'Hagan (St Andrews, UK)

Dr Ioulia Mati
Graduated 2012
Postdoc with Euan Kay (St Andrews, UK)
Previously, postdoc with Colin Campbell (Edinburgh, UK)

Former postdocs (and destinations)


Dr Ivan Smoliar
Postdoc, 2024-2025
Postdoc with Prof. Mathew Langton (Oxford, UK)

Dr Dylan George
Postdoc, 2022-2024
Optics Engineer at Micrographia Bio (London, UK)

Dr Sam Oldknow
Postdoc, 2018-2019
Postdoc with Dr. Paul Lusby (Edinburgh, UK)

Dr Marius Haugland
Postdoc, 2017-2018
Postdoc with Prof. Ed Anderson (Oxford, UK)

Dr Stefan Borsley
Postdoc, 2016-2018
Lecturer in Organic Chemistry, University of Manchester
Postdoc with Prof. Dave Leigh FRS (Manchester, UK)

Dr Jamie Withers
Postdoc, 2018
Postdoc with Prof. Glen Burley (University of Strathclyde, Glasdow, UK)

Dr Dominic Pascoe
Postdoc, 2018
Postgrad Medicine (St. Andrews/Dundee, UK)

Dr Antoine Bader
Postdoc, 2017-2018
ATDBio (Oxford, UK)

Dr James Cooper
Postdoc, 2015-2017
Lecturer in Organic Chemistry (University of Reading, UK)
Postdoc with Prof. Sir J. Fraser Stoddart (Northwestern University, USA)

Dr Matthew Watson
Postdoc, 2015-2017
Postdoc with Roman Tuma and Sheena Radford (University of Leeds, UK)

Dr Michael Ochsenkuehn
Postdoc, 2010-2011
Researcher at (New York University, UAE)
Postdoc (KAUST, Saudi Arabia)

Dr John Brazier
Postdoc, 2009-2010
Postdoc with King Kuok (Mimi) Hii, (Imperial College London, UK)

Project students and research visitors

Man Yuan,  BSc Student, 2025-2026Desiree Fernandes, 4P MChem Student, 2025Ekaterina Bauman, 4P MChem Student, 2025
Anli Lu, 4P MChem Student, 2025 Lara hart, 4P MChem Student, 2025Zhanyuan Liu, MSc Student, 2025
Sarah Macdonald, MChem Student, 2024-2025Malika Wong Murelidaran, 4P MChem Student, 2024Sam Liu, 4P MChem Student, 2024
Dominika Wlazły, 4P MChem Student, 2024Mariah Rong, 4P MChem Student, 2024Xuefei Chen, MSc Student, 2024 
Anna-Luisa Warnke, Visiting Postdoc from Tromsø, 2023 Wenkai Zhang, BSc Student, 2023-2024 Elizabeth Hill, BSc Student, 2023-2024 
Natasza Rybacka, 4P MChem Student, 2023 Cameron Anderson, 4P MChem Student, 2023 Karen Sato, 4P MChem Student, 2023 
Nojus Osinskas, 4P MChem Student, 2022 Antonio Fiorentino, Visiting Student from Bologna, 2023 Yinxuan Zhang, MSc Student, 2023 
Ryan Ferguson, 4P MChem Student, 2022 Elena Gil Gutiérrez, 4P MChem Student, 2022 Falk Meier, 4P MChem Student, 2022 
Nicholas Runcie, 4P MChem Student, 2022 Justin Ko, BSc Student, 2022 Gleb Butyagin, Summer Student, 2022 
Nojus Osinskas, Summer Student, 2022 Jianning Lu, MSc Student, 2022 Chenfeng Zhang, MSc Student, 2022 
Katie Brown, 4P MChem Student, 2022 Allison Findlay, 4P MChem Student, 2022 Adrian Popescu, 4P MChem Student, 2022 
Jonathon Walker, 4P MChem Student, 2022 Eve Bryson, BSc Studemt, 2021-2022 Jessica Flowers, MChem Student, 2021-2022 
Yuqing Zhang, MSc Student, 2021 Sopika Balaskanthan, 4P MChem Student, 2021 Rachel Feeney, 4P MChem Student, 2021 
Botond Gemesi, 4P MChem Student, 2021 Cameron Webster, 4P MChem Student, 2021 Xiao Hu, Bsc Student, 2020-2021 
Juliet Barclay, MChem Student, 2020-2021 Felix Roughton, BSc Student, 2019–2020 Andrew Cummins, 4P MChem Student, 2019 
Peter Ning, 4P MChem Student, 2019 Reinis Rudzitis, Summer Student, 2019 Vesela Zarkina, Afton Chemical Scholarship, 2019 
Kris Chambers, 4P MChem Student, 2019 Laura Fineron, 4P MChem Student, 2019 Louise Biden, BSc Student, 2018–2019 
Artem Goldort, BSc Student, 2018–2019 Hubert Liu, MChem Student, 2018–2019 Sarah Aitken, 4P MChem Student, 2018 
Adelina Ivanova, 4P MChem Student, 2018 Mia Kapun, 4P MChem Student, 2018 Lydia Bowman, MChem Student, 2017–2018 
Dominic Cairns-Gibson, MChem Student, 2017–2018 Karina Krogstrup, Technical Intern, 2017–2018 Katie Grant, Deans Summer Scholarship, 2017 
Alvaro Gallego, 4P MChem Student, 2017 Lucy McQuade, 4P MChem Student, 2017 Mohanish Borana, MSc Student, 2017 
Ewan Bain, MChem Student, 2016–2017 Militsa Yaneva, MChem Student, 2016–2017 Tay McDonald, 4P MChem Student, 2016 
Simon Thornewill von Essen, 4P MChem Student, 2016 Anja Neumann, MSc Student, 2016 Simon Sponholtz, Technical Intern, 2016 
Alethea Han Hui He, BSc Student, 2015–2016 Christopher Evans, MChem Student, 2015–2016 Amy Marshall, BSc Student, 2014–2015 
Sarah McArthur, MChem Student, 2014–2015 Fredrik Karlsson, MChem Student, 2014–2015 Jakob Jessen, Technical Intern, 2014–2015 
Hannah Paterson, MChem Student, 2013–2014 Ksenia Aleksankina, MChem Student, 2013–2014 Daniel Dodd, BSc Student, 2014 
Ben Moss, BSc Student, 2013–2014 Ksenia Aleksankina, MChem Student, 2013–2014 Dominic Pascoe, MChem Student, 2013–2014 
Shona Cammack, MChem Student, 2012–2013 Lucy Antrobus, MChem Student, 2012–2013 Calum Ferguson, MChem Student, 2012–2013 
Graeme Rogers, MSc Student, 2012 Gemma Gowrie, MChem Student, 2011–2012 Jack Harris, MChem Student, 2011–2012 
Hayat P. H. Saifuddin, MSc Student, 2011 Susie Metcalfe, BSc Student, 2010–2011 Nicholas Dominelli Whiteley, MChem Student, 2010–2011 
Basile Wicky, Visiting Student, 2010–2011 Eugene Guobin Choon, Visiting Student, 2010 Urszula Wolkowicz, BSc Student, 2009–2010 
Catherine Adam, MChem Student, 2009–2010 Sophie Spurr, MChem Student, 2009–2010 Kirsten Strain, MChem Student, 2008–2009 
Tereza Vokata, MChem Student, 2008–2009 Stefanie Noe, Visiting Student, 2008–2009 Bobby Oag, BSc Student, 2007–2008 

 

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