Missing Elements: Racial and ethnic inequalities in the chemical sciences

Helen joined the Royal Society of Chemistry after completing a degree and PhD in Chemistry. She is a Chartered Chemist and a Chartered Scientist.  At the RSC, she has led many of its strategic functions and was appointed Deputy CEO in 2015.  Helen is a champion for the profession and has commissioned bold campaigns such as Breaking the Barriers and our work to support Technicians. 

From 2018 - 2021 Helen was Chair of the Science Council, a UK organisation for the advancement of the science profession.  She took up the role of Acting CEO of the Royal Society of Chemistry in January 2020 and was appointed Chief Executive in June 2021. 

Robert Mokaya FRSC received a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Nairobi and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. Following a Research Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, he was awarded an EPSRC Advanced Fellowship. He was then appointed to a lectureship in Materials Chemistry at The University of Nottingham where he is now Professor of Materials Chemistry and Pro-Vice-Chancellor Global Engagement. He is a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holder (2017-2022). In 2021, he was appointed to the Royal Society of Chemistry Board of Trustees

Ijeoma Uchegbu FMedSci is UCL’s Professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience, a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a governor on the Wellcome board and Chief Scientific Officer of Nanomerics Ltd, a UCL spin out company.
She has studied the mechanisms of drug transport across biological barriers and created transformational drug transport nanoparticles.  She was the first to show that peptides could be delivered across the blood brain barrier to elicit a pharmacological response, when presented as peptide drug nanofibers and the first to demonstrate, via definitive pharmacology and pharmacokinetics evidence, peptide transport into the brain, using peptide nanoparticles delivered via the nose to brain route.  These findings led to  the enkephalin pain medicine candidate Envelta™, which was designed to address the opioid crisis.  In preclinical studies, Envelta™ showed no analgesic tolerance, reward seeking behaviour or potential to cause significant constipation.  Envelta has been out licensed to Virpax Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:VRPX) and is currently being developed by the US National Center for Advancing Translational Studies.  If successful, this will be the first neuropeptide medicine approval and it will have been made possible by the innovation originating in Uchegbu’s group.
The technology underpinning Envelta™ won first prize in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Emerging Technologies competition in 2017 and the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences Science Innovation Award in 2016. 
Three other medicine candidates based on this nanotechnology have been out-licensed to pharmaceutical companies in the US.  Uchegbu’s work has been funded continuously for 21 years by the EPSRC and she serves on the BBSRC Council.  As UCL’s Pro Vice Provost for Africa and the Middle East, Uchegbu leads on the international research and teaching engagement strategy in this region.  She has served as Chair of the Academy of  Pharmaceutical Sciences and chaired EPSRC and Science Foundation Ireland grant prioritisation panels.  She is UCL Provost’s Envoy for Race Equality and leads on race equality work at UCL.  Her initiatives (e.g. Dean’s Pledges on Race Equality) were instrumental in achieving UCL’s Bronze Race Charter in 2020.

Gender Equality Policy Manager, University College London
Kevin is an equalities practitioner within higher education, currently working at University College London as their Athena SWAN and Gender Equality Policy Manager. He is also Chair of Higher Education Race Action Group (HERAG), an Athena SWAN and Race Equality Charter panellist for Advance HE and Chair of Trustees for the Windsor Fellowship. Kevin also holds Council positions at the Faraday Institution and The Linnean Society of London and was recently awarded a Guardian Public Service Leadership award. Kevin is an independent appointed member of the RSC Inclusion and Diversity Committee.

Marina Resmini was born in Milan, Italy, where she grew up and studied Chemistry at the University of Milan. Following her PhD (1994) she moved first to the University of Amsterdam and then to London, following the award of a prestigious Marie Curie Fellowship.  

She developed her academic career at Queen Mary University of London, where she is now Professor of Materials Chemistry and current Head of the Chemistry Department, part of the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences. Her research interests are focused in the area of functional nano materials with applications at the interface between physical and bio/medical sciences, particularly as enzyme-mimics, sensors and drug delivery systems. 

She has a strong interest in inclusion and diversity, in particular supporting young female researchers at the very early stages of their careers; she is now Chair of the RSC Inclusion and Diversity Committee. 

Gill is Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Southampton and served as Head of School between 2016 and 2020.
 
Born and raised in Central Scotland, Gill obtained both her BSc and PhD at the University of Edinburgh, before being appointed to a lectureship in Chemistry at Southampton in 1991. She became professor in 2006.
 
Her group’s research focuses on synthetic coordination and organometallic chemistry and is motivated by both fundamental studies of new ligand types that explore the influence of metal-ligand combinations on properties and reactivity, as well as more application driven targets. Particular areas of interest are developing reagents for use in chemical vapour deposition and electrodeposition for the controlled growth of functional semiconducting thin film and nanostructured materials. Metal chalcogenides, in particular, have important technological applications, such as solid-state memory, thermoelectric energy harvesting and battery materials. She also works on the development of metal-chelate scaffolds for binding the fluorine-18 radioisotope towards new positron emission tomography (PET) imaging agents and has published over 350 research papers.
 
She is currently President-Elect of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2020-22). She previously served as an elected Trustee of the Society (2011-15) and chaired the Outreach Working Group until 2018.