Joliot-Curie Conference 2021

Kelly Chibale is a full Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Cape Town (UCT) where he holds the Neville Isdell Chair in African-centric Drug Discovery & Development. He is also a Full Member of the UCT Institute of Infectious Disease & Molecular Medicine, a Tier 1 South Africa Research Chair in Drug Discovery, founding Director of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) Drug Discovery & Development Research Unit at UCT and the Founder and Director of the UCT Drug Discovery and Development Centre (H3D).

Kelly obtained his PhD in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from the University of Cambridge in the UK (1989-1992). This was followed by postdoctoral stints at the University of Liverpool in the UK (1992-94) and at the Scripps Research Institute in the USA (1994-96). He was a Sandler Sabbatical Fellow at the University of California San Francisco (2002), a US Fulbright Senior Research Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (2008) and a Visiting Professor at Pfizer in the UK (2008).

In 2018 Kelly was recognized by Fortune magazine as one of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders and in 2019 he was named as one of the 100 Most Influential Africans by New African magazine.

I am the Research Development Manager within the Research & Innovation Office at Cranfield University. I have led the public sector pre-award research support team at Cranfield since 2015 when the office was set up. I also lead on researcher development across the institution, and have been responsible for developing and delivering researcher development initiatives across the institution. I am active within the Association for Research Management and Administrators where I form part of the Training and Development working group. I am also experienced in grant delivery and project management and spent a number of years as a researcher. I have a PhD in environmental analytical chemistry from Dublin City University (funded as part of a Marie Curie ITN) and an MSc and BSc (Hons) from the University of Malta.

Enthusiastic about encouraging communication and interaction with science in creative and comprehensive ways, following her degree specialising in chemistry from University of Durham, Kathryn joined Publishing Directorate of the Royal Society of Chemistry. She has experience in working as an editor handling peer review, copyediting, journal production and development, across the breadth of the RSC’s chemical sciences portfolio. Kathryn also organised and led the #RSCPoster twitter conference in 2019 and 2020. She is currently a Deputy Editor on the RSC’s open access team, responsible for growing portfolio of open access titles.
 
Twitter: @KGempf
 

Tanya joined the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2018. She heads up the RSC’s Policy and Evidence team, responsible for developing evidence-based policy positions to advise decision makers on how to help enable the chemical sciences community to make the world a better place as well as responding in an agile way to relevant emerging issues.
Tanya has extensive experience of making and implementing public policy. As a civil servant at the former Department of Trade and Industry and then the Department of Energy and Climate Change, she developed policy and advised Ministers on energy, employment law, European Union, small business and industry, with a largely economic policy focus.
Before joining the RSC, Tanya worked for Cambridgeshire County Council, leading economic development programmes and advising elected Councillors. She holds post-graduate degrees in European Studies and Business Administration.

Dr Kate Madden completed both her undergraduate degree with a year at AstraZeneca and her PhD with Professor Andy Whiting at Durham University, finishing in 2017. Following this, she took up postdoctoral positions at the University of Oxford with Professors Angie Russell and Kylie Vincent from 2017-2020. In July 2020, Kate joined Newcastle University as a Newcastle/Monash University Academic Track Fellow in Drug Discovery, where the group uses chemistry and biology to find new medicines for neurodegenerative disease.

Dr Paul McGonigal is an Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry at Durham University where he investigates new small-molecule motifs for functional materials by taking advantage of unusual interactions, reactivity, and dynamics. Prior to moving to Durham in 2015, he had complete undergraduate (MChem, 2007) and postgraduate (PhD, 2010) degrees at the University of Edinburgh, as well as postdoctoral periods at the ICIQ, Spain (2011–2012) and as a Fulbright Scholar at Northwestern University, USA (2012–2015). His group’s research has been recognised by the Molecules Young Investigator Award 2018.

Dr Rebecca Melen studied for her undergraduate and PhD degrees at the University of Cambridge, completing her PhD in 2012 with Prof. Wright. Following postdoctoral studies with Prof. Stephan in Toronto and with Prof. Gade in Heidelberg, she took up a position at Cardiff University in 2014, where she is now a Reader in inorganic chemistry. In 2018, she was awarded an EPSRC early career fellowship, and she is the recipient of the 2019 RSC Harrison Meldola Memorial Prize. Her research interests lie in main group chemistry and the applications of main group Lewis acids in synthesis and catalysis.
 

Alison Rodger was born in Scotland, educated in England, New Zealand and Australia. She obtained a BSc with University Medal for theoretical chemistry, PhD and DSc from the University of Sydney. She was elected to a Beatrice Dale fellowship at Newnham College, Cambridge, and Unilever and Samuel and Violette Glasstone Fellowships at Oxford. She subsequently moved to the University of Warwick where she developed innovative Centres for cross-discipline Doctoral training. She has been Head of Chemistry at Warwick and Head of Molecular Sciences at Macquarie where she moved in 2017. She is passionate about leading all activities including teaching and her commitment to gender equity with foundational research. Her research focuses on developing spectroscopies to determine how the structure and arrangement of biomolecules impact their function. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the British Biophysical Society, and the Royal Australian Chemical Society. 
 

Daniel Smith is the Head of Physical Sciences at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, which is the national funder for EPS research, skills and infrastructure. Daniel, along with the wider physical sciences team, is responsible for setting the strategic vision for physical sciences research within EPSRC, working across UKRI, external stakeholders and the academic community to realise the UK Physical Sciences Powerhouse concept through enabling and building on discovery research. Having worked in various roles across the research councils, covering national policy pertaining to  Quantum Technologies & Robotics, the Natural Environment and EPSRC business engagement, Daniel brings broad perspective to one of EPSRC’s most underpinning themes. At the heart of the team’s approach is working to ensure a fair and equitable approach that enables all parts of the PS ecosystem to flourish.

Shiny Mathew joined the EPSRC Physical Sciences theme in April this year. She is responsible for the Chemical Biology, Synthetic Coordination Chemistry and Synthetic Supramolecular Chemistry research areas. Shiny is also the Physical Sciences contact for New Investigator Awards. Before going on her maternity leave last year, Shiny worked with the EPSRC Digital Economy theme looking after the Content Creation and Consumption portfolio. Shiny has a STEM background, and prior to joining EPSRC she completed her PhD in Chemistry at the EPSRC doctoral training centre for Advanced Characterisation of Materials.