Anna graduated from the University of Nottingham with a PhD in Supramolecular Chemistry (2011). After PDRA positions in porphyrins and molecular materials Anna was appointed as a Royal Society-EPSRC Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow in 2016 and a RS URF in 2021. She was promoted to a Personal Chair in Oct 22. Her research interests span flow chemistry, materials science, supramolecular self-assembly, and enabling technology for process control.

Dr Firdaus Parveen received her Master's degree in Chemistry (2011) and Doctorate in Chemical Engineering (2017) from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India. She was awarded a prestigious Shastri Indo Canadian research award in 2017 to work at USASK, Canada. She has also worked as an Assistant Professor at University of Delhi, India from 2017-18. She joined Imperial College of London as Research Associate in 2019 and worked with Prof Mimi Hii (ICL), Prof Klaus (ICL) and Prof J. Blacker (Leeds). She has gained advanced experience of continuous flow chemistry, building flow set ups, robotic reactions, liquid and gas phase reactions, heterogenous catalysis, catalysts development and their characterization, high and low pressure reactions. She believes in work life balance and would like to visit new places and explore nature. 

Alex completed his MChem with a Year in Industry (GSK) at the University of Sussex (2011) and graduated from Imperial College London with a PhD in Organic Chemistry (2018). His first PDRA position was in the group of Dr Marcus Baumann at University College Dublin, working in collaboration with Pfizer Ireland to explore the use of flow chemistry in API synthesis. Currently he is working as a PDRA in the Slater group, further expanding on the use of new and continuous technologies in chemistry.

Megan completed her MChem at the University of Liverpool, where her final year project focused on synthesising asymmetric porphyrins. Her PhD (2023) supervised by Prof Andy Cooper was in the area of crystal engineering of porous materials. Megan particularly focused on controlling rapid crystallisations of charged species to form porous molecular crystals and investigated their properties during her PhD. Megan has now taken up a postdoctoral research position joint between the Cooper and Slater groups working on the synthesis of porous substrates for challenging separations.

Abbie completed her MChem at the University of Liverpool, where her final year project focussed on the synthesis of functionalised piperazines as β-turn mimetics. Her PhD (2023), funded by the Royal Society and co-supervised by Dr Becky Greenaway and Prof Slater, focussed on the synthesis of functionalised imine macrocycles and exploring how enabling technologies can be used to refine and control complicated dynamic mixtures. Now, Abbie has taken up a position joint between the Slater and Cooper Groups on the synthesis of porous substrates for challenging separations.

Prachi completed her master's in Chemistry from Delhi, India, in 2015. Soon after she joined PhD program at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER)-Pune, India where she worked on synthesis and redox study of antiaromatic macrocycles under the guidance of Prof. V.G. Anand and received her degree in 2022. During her final year of PhD. she worked as an exchange student in Prof. Miquel A. Pericàs’s research group at Catalan Institute of Chemical Research (ICIQ)-Tarragona, Spain. Afterwards she worked as a postdoctoral researcher for five months at ESPCI, Paris. Currently she is working on cage chemistry in Slater group. In her spare time, she loves to experiment with her cooking or travel places. 

Dr. Liqun Guo received her master degree (2018) from Lanzhou University, majored in organic total synthesis. She completed her PhD (2023) which was co-supervised by Prof. Paul O'Neill and Prof. Neil Berry in University of Liverpool, majored in medicinal chemistry. She focused on developing a series of novel cyclophilin D inhibitors for treatment of acute pancreatitis. Her first PDRA job was in the group of Michael Turner, at University of Manchester, working on building a flow process for production of a sustainable fuel. Now, Liqun is working as a PDRA in Slater's group, continuing to explore the area of flow chemistry.

Abdul Hadi graduated from the Cardiff University with a PhD in Organic Synthesis, New Aspects of Acid-Catalysed Cyclisations (2015) supervised by Prof David W Knight. During PDRA positions, Abdul explored the use of Continuous-Flow technique for Preparation of Anticancer Drugs. In 2018 Abdul moved GE/Cytiva Healthcare to work as Research and Development Scientist with Fibre & Membrane Technologies Group.

Currently he is working in Materials Innovation Factory in Prof. Slater group, further expanding the use of continuous flow chemistry with industrial partner to improve Next-Generation Carbon Dioxide Capture Technology.

'Nick completed his undergraduate degree in Chemistry at Keele University in 2019. Nick then moved to Liverpool to complete his MSc in chemical sciences where his project looked the synthesis of PROTACs for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer. He is now studying a PhD in 'process structure function relationships for supramolecular materials discovery' supervised by Dr Anna Slater and co-supervised by Dr Samantha Chong.

Jaz completed her MChem at the University of Sheffield (2020), with a final year project focussing on reaction development and optimisation for Chan Lam etherification. She remained at the University of Sheffield for her PhD under the supervision of Dr Ben Partridge and Dr Grant Hill. Her PhD project focused on the reactions, synthesis and computational studies of synthetic building blocks, for which she organised a placement at AstraZeneca. Jaz has now taken up a position in the Slater Group, working on a joint project with Dr Adam Clayton, Prof Richard Bourne, and Prof Alexei Lapkin. This project will focus on autonomous optimisation in continuous flow for pharmaceutical development, with Jaz taking her first steps into learning flow chemistry! In her spare time, Jaz loves to read, crochet, swim, and explore local cafes.

Caitlin joined us in October 2021 for her PhD, supervised by Prof Andy Cooper and Anna and funded via an ERC Synergy Grant: Autonomous Discovery of Advanced Materials (ADAM), in October 2021. Prior to her PhD she spent a year at Smithers as an LC-MS analyst before returning to the University of Liverpool.

Aran earned his BSc (Hons) in Chemistry from Liverpool John Moores University in 2022, completing a research project on metalloporphyrin metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) for optical oxygen sensing; his supervisor, Dr. Francesca Giuntini, was awarded a Marie Curie grant with this work. In 2023, Aran completed his MSc at the University of Liverpool, his research project focusing on lanthanide-oxalate frameworks as potential lithium-ion sorbents for groundwater brines, under the Rosseinsky group.

In January 2024, Aran began his PhD with the Slater group, co-supervised by Prof. Liang Zhang of East China Normal University and Dr. John Ward. Aran’s research focuses on investigating metal coordination in supramolecular systems and using reactor design with Design of Experiments approaches to translate and optimise these processes to flow.

Harvey graduated in 2023 from the University of Liverpool with an MCHEM, receiving the LCC distinction award for his final year project presentation. Much of the research undertaken by Harvey to date has centred around flow chemistry, with a total of two summer studentships and both his third- and fourth-year projects working in this exciting area of cutting-edge chemistry. He has recently developed a strong interest in the deployment of enabling technologies, and machine learning in the lab, and aims to apply these in the pursuit of synthesising novel macrocyclic targets and delivering more sustainable chemical processes. 

Harvey’s PhD commenced in Oct 2023 within the Slater group and will be co-supervised by Prof Andy Cooper (Liverpool) and Prof Richard Bourne (Leeds). He has two main goals, the development of novel techniques for self-optimised flow chemistry, and testing and cataloguing the properties and potential applications of supramolecular systems.  

Matthew completed his MChem in Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacology at the University of Liverpool in 2024, where he earned the LCC Distinction Award for his final year research project. His research during his third and fourth years, as well as his summer studentship, focused on developing compounds to address diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and lymphatic filariasis.

Matthew began his PhD in October 2024 with the Slater Group, under the co-supervision of Prof. Anna Slater and Dr. Christophe Aissa. His research aims to investigate non-thermal plasma as a chemical reagent, with a focus on elucidating its mechanisms and exploring its application in pharmaceutically relevant electroconductive reactions.

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George graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2022 with an undergraduate degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry, completing placements at Recipharm and AstraZeneca. He then moved to Durham University to complete his master’s degree under the supervision of Prof. Ian Baxendale, working on the use of flow chemistry to synthesise functionalised nitrobenzene derivatives. George then moved to Sterling Pharma Solutions to work as a Flow Chemistry Development Chemist. His PhD will be focussed on the development of bespoke algorithms for autonomous optimisation in flow, supervised by Prof. Anna Slater and Prof. Prudence Wong.

Alice graduated from the University of Birmingham with a Master’s degree in Chemistry, during which she completed a year in industry at Evotec, Abingdon, as part of the medicinal chemistry team. She then joined AstraZeneca's two-year R&D programme in Gothenburg, Sweden, where she worked across three teams on high-throughput synthesis of PROTACs, large-scale synthesis, and reaction prediction models. In January 2025, Alice began her PhD at the University of Liverpool, supervised by Dr. John Ward, Prof. Anna Slater, Prof. Richard Bourne, and AstraZeneca. Her research focuses on developing heterogeneous photocatalysis and reactors for production-scale photoredox catalysis.

Meg graduated from the University of Liverpool in 2024 after studying for a BSc in Chemistry, where she continued her studies and started an MSc in Digital Chemistry in 2024. Her research has focussed on analytical chemistry and the development of university courses.

Her interests have aligned with crystallography and automation within flow chemistry, and she aims to apply this towards her research project within the group. Her research mainly focuses on automating inline analysis techniques to optimise organic synthesis in flow under the supervision of Prof Anna Slater and Harvey West.

Jack is a 3rd year MChem student at the University of Liverpool. He has completed a summer placement at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, focusing on the synthesis and characterisation of dibenzo[a,c]phenazine derivatives for their application in Organic Solar Cells. As part of his 3rd year research project, he will be attempting to synthesise a novel porous organic cage for solid state and solution-phase applications, under supervision of Dr Prachi Gupta. 

Ollie is a student in his final year of his MChem degree at the University of Liverpool. During his third year, he worked with the Hasell group on inverse vulcanised sulfur polymers, developing methods for future kinetic analysis. Over the last summer, he continued working with sulfur polymers at the spinout company, Thiotech.

Now in his fourth year, Ollie has taken an interest into flow chemistry to study imine-based covalent cages. Aiming to discover scrambled porous organic cages and cage precursors for the development of new functionalised materials. His future goal is to continue working towards the optimisation of materials utilising flow chemistry and automation.

Amine has taken up a position between the Cooper and Slater groups to manage the UKAEA funded project on the synthesis of porous substrates for challenging separations.

Amine graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Microbiology from the University of Leeds in 2003. After initially working in the pharmaceutical industry, Amine joined Liverpool John Moores University to deliver a Knowledge Transfer Partnership in Microbiology and Water and Environmental Engineering between the university and a company based in Preston. Amine then moved on to Lancaster University and the University of Central Lancashire where he was managing various types of knowledge exchange programmes, mainly focusing on research and student employability.

https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/working/jobvacancies/

We are able to host UG students for summer placements via different mechanisms depending on whether you are a UoL UG student or external, please feel free to get in touch.