Past Group Members

Andrew finished his PhD in 2021.

Dominik is currently working for Rosche in Basel. (2013)

Jamie is currently working as a postdoctoral research associate for Prof. Igor Larrosa at The University of Manchester (2021)

Jingying is currently working for WuXi AppTec in Shanghai. (2020)

Joanne finished her PhD in 2020.

Liam finished his PhD in 2021.

Kieran finished his PhD in 2022.

Dominic finished his PhD in 2022

Luke grew up in Suffolk and obtained his MChem from the University of Bath which included an industrial placement at Sanofi developing and implementing PAT (Process Analytical Technology) systems. Under the supervision of Prof. Matthew Jones, his final year project was studying Aluminium (III) initiators for producing the biopolymer polylactic acid. In 2019, he began his Royal Society funded PhD in the Thomas group at the University of Edinburgh where he is working on developing Earth-abundant metal catalysis for organic synthesis. Luke recieved his PhD in 2023.

Alex completed his PhD, jointly supervised by Prof. Stephen Thomas and Dr Mike Cowley, in 2023 investigating Aluminium-catalysed borylations.

Nick is currently working for the National Nuclear Laboratory. (2014)

Alison is currently working as a patent attorney at Elkington + Fife. (2014)

Mark is currently working as a lecturer at The Univesity of Warwick. (2015)

Alistair is currently working for Cambridge Consultants. (2017)

James is curently working for Sygnature Discovery. (2017)

Kailong Zhu finished his PhD in the Thomas group in 2017.

Amy is currently working for Infineum. (2017)

Peter is currently working as a postdoctoral fellow for Mike Neidig at The University of Rochester. (2017)

Nate is currently completing a PhD at the University of Gottingen. (2017)

Alessandro is currently undertaking a postdoctoral position with Bill Morandi at ETH Zurich. (2018)

Jon is currently working at AstraZeneca. (2018)

Riaz is currently working for the Public Health service in Kosovo. (2019)

Peter is currently a publishing editor for The Royal Society of Chemsitry. (2019)

Rory grew up in leafy Lochwinnoch, Renfrewshire, before studying biochemistry (BSc) at the University of Bath. This included a placement year with Oxitec where he investigated self-limiting insect control technologies in mosquitos, sparking his interest in synthetic biology. Rory pursued this by studying synthetic biology (MRes) at University College London, where he joined the biocatalysis group lead by Profs. Helen Hailes and John Ward. His project focussed on generating novel alkaloid drug scaffolds, through engineering cytochrome P450s for an intramolecular C-C phenolic coupling reaction. Rory recently joined the Thomas and Wallace groups at the University of Edinburgh to pursue a PhD, funded by Lubrizol through the EaSi-CAT programme, with the goal to develop sustainable routes to petrochemicals. Rory finished his PhD in 2024.

Nojus grew up in Vilnius, Lithuania and obtained his MChem degree from University of Nottingham. He carried out his final year research project on copper mediated trifluoromethylation of aryl halides under supervision of Prof. Simon Woodward. Nojus started his PhD in September 2020 jointly supervised by Prof. Stephen Thomas and Prof. Michael Ingleson and is now working on aromatic C-H functionalisation utilising novel sulfur electrophiles.

Natalia completed a summer placement within the Thomas Group as part of her PhD studies with the Baeza Carratala Group at the University of Alicante.

2022

In 2022, Christian completed a 3-month placement as visiting PhD in the Thomas group at the University of Edinburgh, funded by the EaSI-CAT SFC Saltire Emerging Researcher Scheme.

In January 2023 Emanuele joined the Thomas Group to undertake a 6 month project working on boron catalysis.

Paula Dominguez Molano was born in Reus, Spain, in 1998. She received her B. Sc. in Chemistry from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) in 2020. Her Bachelor’s project was based on the study of cobalt catalysis research in terms of C–H trifluoromethylthiolation functionalization reactions at Institut Català d’Investigació Química (ICIQ). She completed the URV-ICIQ Master Synthesis, Catalysis and Molecular Design working on the project “Transborylation reaction of alkenyl boranes with diboron reagents and gem-diboryl alkanes” under the supervision of Prof. Elena Fernández. Currently, she is doing the PhD studies under the supervision of Prof. Elena Fernández. She is currently visiting the Thomas group to work on organoborane chemistry.

Ashley is a visiting student from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She received her BSc in Chemistry from the University of Alberta in 2021, including a 1-year industrial internship at Gilead Sciences (Alberta). She is currently completing her PhD studies under the supervision of Prof. Dennis Hall in the area of organoboron methodology development. Ashley joined the Thomas group in May 2024, working towards Mn-catalyzed coupling reactions of boronic acids.

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2014

2014

2014

2014

2014

2015

2015

2015

2015

2016

2017

2018

2018

2018

2018

2018

2019

2021

2021

2021

In 2022 Leonie completed a 3-month internship in the Thomas Group.

 Leander completed a three-month internship in the Thomas group exploring novel Mn catalysis before finishing his M.Sc. back in Göttingen.

Evelyn grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts in the United States and is a visiting third year from Haverford College. She is currently working on manganese-catalysed homocoupling reactions with arylboronic acids. Evelyn joined the Thomas group in January 2024 for her spring semester abroad. 

Ivan was born and raised in Hong Kong, and is a third year visiting student from the University of Hong Kong. He is currently working on the identification of hidden brønsted acid catalysis. Ivan joined the Thomas group in January 2024 to conduct a project under the co-supervision of Prof. Stephen Thomas and Prof. C.-M. Che.