People
Harrison Steel
Associate Professor of Engineering Science
Bio: Harrison received BSc (Physics/Math) and BEng (Mechanical Engineering) degrees from the University of Sydney and went on to complete a D.Phil at the University of Oxford as a Monash Scholar. After Postdoctoral research at Oxford he joined the Department of Engineering Science in 2020 as an Associate Professor and Tutorial Fellow at Harris Manchester College.
Favourite Activities: Singing (in choir), Athletics (sprinting), and Cycling.
Links: Twitter – LinkedIn – Google Scholar – Control Group – Department
– 2024 MPLS Award for Outstanding Research Supervision
– 2023 RAEng Young Engineer of the Year and Sir George Macfarlane Medal
– 2023 MPLS Early Career Commercial Impact Prize
– 2022 Philip Leverhulme Prize in Engineering
Research Fellows & Staff
Dr Idris Kempf
Senior Research Associate
Bio: Idris holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering and an MSc in Robotics, Systems and Control from ETH Zurich. After 3 years of industry experience, Idris pursued on a D.Phil at the University of Oxford in collaboration with Diamond Light Source. Currently, Idris is a Postdoctoral Researcher and Stipendiary Lecturer at Hertford College.
Favourite Activities: Sports (snowboarding, kitesurfing), Music (drums, clarinet), and Dancing (salsa).
Links: Personal Website – Google Scholar – Github
Dr Andreas Porse
Senior Research Associate
Bio: Andreas earned his PhD from the Technical University of Denmark, where he focused on the genetics and evolution of antibiotic resistance. Following his doctoral work, he spent five years at SNIPR Biome, developing a novel DNA delivery platform to target bacterial strains in the microbiome. Currently, Andreas is a Senior Research Associate, and his research explores evolutionary processes and drug resistance using the long-term evolution machine.
Favourite Activities:Hiking, maintaining a saltwater aquarium, AI, swing dancing, watching Peppa Pig with his son, and enjoying free food/coffee at Linacre College.
Links: LinkedIn, Google Scholar
Dr Thomas Mulroney
Senior Research Associate
Bio: Tom studied Biochemistry at the University of Birmingham. During his PhD he worked at the Medical Research Council Toxicology Unit, the Biochemistry Department (University of Cambridge), and AstraZeneca, funded by the Medical Research Council Integrative Toxicology Training Partnership. He received his PhD from Jesus College Cambridge in 2021. Since his PhD, Tom has worked as a postdoctoral research scientist at the MRC Toxicology Unit, investigating modified nucleotides and RNA therapeutics. In 2024 he joined the Steel Group (University of Oxford), working on applications in engineering biology.
Favourite Activities: Squash, hiking, and cooking.
Caleb Goddard
Senior Mechanical Engineer
Bio:Caleb received an MEng in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College London. After working in the Space Industry for 4 years he joined the lab to help design and manufacture the next generation of the long-term evolution machine as part of the DARTS project (Defeating Antibiotic Resistance through Transformative Solutions).
Favourite Activities: Hiking with Dog, Camping without Dog, Board Games and Water Sports
Links: Linkedin
D.Phil. (PhD) Research Students
Lisa Zillig
D.Phil Student, co-supervised with Steve Kelly.
Bio: Lisa studied Biology (BSc and MSc) at the University Duisburg-Essen (Germany) and started her DPhil with the Interdisciplinary Bioscience DTP at Oxford in 2019.
Favourite Activities: Rowing, Mixed Martial Arts, Cycling (long distance trips), and Formal Dinners at my College (fueling up for all the sport again).
Links: LinkedIn – Steve Kelly Lab
Miroslav Gasparek
D.Phil Student, co-supervised with Antonis Papachristodoulou.
Bio: Miro received MEng in Biomedical Engineering from Imperial College London in 2019. He is currently pursuing DPhil in Engineering Science at Oxford, with a focus on Control Theory and engineering of biomolecular feedback systems.
Favourite Activities: Weightlifting (a. k. a. applied Biomechanics!), Oxford and European Synthetic Biology Societies, Entrepreneurship, Oxford Formals (to discuss everything but control theory and synthetic biology!)
Links: Twitter – LinkedIn – Personal Website
Ting An Lee
D.Phil Student
Bio: Ting received a BSc in Biotechnology and an MRes in Systems & Synthetic Biology at Imperial Colllege London. He started his DPhil in Engineering Science at Oxford in 2021, with a focus on methods of controlling microbial communities.
Favourite Activities: Badminton, frisbee, and enjoying free college food.
Links: LinkedIn
Olivia Gallupova
D.Phil Student
Bio: Olivia received an MEng in Molecular Bioengineering from Imperial College London and was on the 2020 Imperial iGEM team. She is currently at Wadham College pursuing a DPhil in Engineering Sciences doing research in computational methods for synthetic biology.
Favourite Activities: Playing saxophone and singing, SynBioUK, selling jewelry, skiing and surfing
Links: LinkedIn
Scott Stacey
D.Phil Student, co-supervised with Antonis Papachristodoulou.
Bio: Scott received a BSc in Biological Sciences with a year in industry from Imperial College London. He is currently at Lincoln College on Oxford’s Interdisciplinary Bioscience DTP, with his research focusing on understanding and engineering Sponge RNAs in Bacteria.
Favourite Activities: Football; SynBio Society; enjoying Oxfordshire countryside; environmental rep for Lincoln’s MCR; far too many formal dinners.
Links: LinkedIn
Jessica James
D.Phil Student
Bio: Jess studied a BSc in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Bath, including a yearlong industrial placement. She went on to study an MSc in Bioinformatics and Theoretical Systems Biology at Imperial College London, and now pursues a DPhil in Engineering Science.
Favourite Activities: Wild swimming (currently on the look out for spots in Oxford!), camping trips, painting (mostly watercolour), making her own clothes.
Links: LinkedIn
Kirill Sechkar
D.Phil Student
Bio: Kirill received an MEng in Molecular Bioengineering from Imperial College London in 2022. He is currently at The Queen’s College pursuing a DPhil in Engineering Science, investigating how different synthetic gene circuits interact with each other and with the cell hosting them.
Favourite Activities: Hiking around the spectacular English countryside, writing and reading poetry and prose.
Links: LinkedIn – Twitter
Sebastian Towers
D.Phil Student
Bio: Sebastian studied Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Oxford, before starting a DPhil with the AIMS CDT in 2021. He is currently under the co-supervision of Harrison Steel and Jakob Foerster, instigating the intersection of machine learning and evolving biological systems.
Favourite Activities: Ultimate frisbee, cooking, board and video games , YouTube edu-tainment.
Marco Corrao
D.Phil Student
Bio: Marco received a MEng in Molecular Bioengineering from Imperial College London in 2021. He then joined Oxford’s Interdisciplinary Bioscience DTP for his DPhil, working at the interface of modelling, control and automation in the context of adaptive laboratory evolution.
Favourite Activities: Running, swimming, playing guitar, and volunteering
Links: LinkedIn
Frank Yu
Part-time D.Phil Student
Bio:Frank received his HBSc in health and disease and MSc in physiology from the University of Toronto. His past experience was in large animal and human ex situ heart perfusion systems. He is now at St. Edmund Hall pursuing a part-time DPhil in Engineering Science. His main research focus is on mammalian bioreactors
Favourite Activities:Building water cooled computers, snowboarding, non-profit engagement, and swimming
Links: LinkedIn
Marina Luchner
D.Phil Student, co-supervised with M.Wood and S. Sanders
Bio: Marina studied Biochemistry (BSc) at the Technical University of Munich (Germany) with a stint as visiting student at the University of Oxford. She then returned to Oxford to pursue the Interdisciplinary Biosciences Doctoral Training Programme, focusing on machine-learning assisted protein engineering.
Favourite Activities:Rowing, running, and cooking with housemates (see Gabriel Abrahams).
Links: LinkedIn
Gabriel Abrahams
D.Phil Student
Bio: Gabriel received a BSc in physics/maths and an MSc in physics both from the University of Melbourne. Prior to moving to Oxford he was a research assistant at RMIT investigating quantum sensing. He is currently pursuing a DPhil on the Interdisciplinary Biosciences DTP, focusing on protein engineering.
Favourite Activities: Hiking, piano, and cooking with housemates (see Marina Luchner).
Links: LinkedIn – Google Scholar – Github
Vicente Trelles Fernandez
D.Phil Student
Bio: Vicente received a BSc from The University of Edinburgh in 2020 and an MSc from ETH Zurich in 2023, both in Biotechnology. He is now pursuing a DPhil in Engineering Science, investigating ways to improve directed evolution methods in bacteria.
Favourite Activities: Karate, Writing
Links: LinkedIn
Agrima Deedwania
D.Phil Student
Bio: Agrima received a B.Tech in Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. After undergrad, she worked as a research scientist in a MedTech startup: Inito. She is currently pursuing a DPhil on the Interdisciplinary Biosciences DTP, focusing on protein engineering and antimicrobial resistance.
Favourite Activities: Badminton, hiking, cooking and watching pretty skies
Links: LinkedIn – Personal Website
Svenja Lützow
D.Phil Student
Bio: Svenja received a BSc and MSc in Molecular and Applied Biotechnology from RWTH Aachen University. After two years of industry experience, she started a DPhil in Engineering Science at Jesus College in 2024.
Favourite Activities: Yoga, reading, skiing, surfing
Angel Xia
D.Phil Student
Bio: Angel studied BSc in Biochemistry and subsequently a MRes in Cellular and Molecular Biosciences at Imperial College London. Prior to Oxford she also worked as a research assistant on mammalian cell free synthesis of vaccines. She is now pursuing a DPhil in Engineering Science at Wadham with a focus on applications and control of adaptive laboratory evolution.
Favourite Activities: My two cats, Badminton, Climbing, Baking and cooking , Video games (in moderation whoops).
Joshua Pearson
MEng Student
Bio: Joshua is studying Engineering Science at Oxford. For his Masters project, he is applying control theory to unstable biological systems to accelerate Adaptive Laboratory Evolution. Prior to starting at Oxford, he spent a year at an engineering consultancy, where he – amongst other things – investigated the science of coffee.
Favourite Activities: Running, hiking and cooking new recipes.
Links: LinkedIn
Photo Gallery
Most of the group at SynBioUK 2023 in Bristol (November 2023)
Group visit to Hardwick Hall while en route to SynBioUK 2022 (November 2022)
Alumni
Dr Simona Della Valle
Finished Oct 2023, co-supervised with Wei Huang.
Bio: Simona started her DPhil in 2018 at Oxford’s SynBio CDT, with research focusing on engineering bacteria for sustainable biomanufacturing. She subsequently took up a postdoctoral position at the University of Western Australia.
Favourite Activities: Powerlifting with the Linacre Ladies that Lift, birdwatching, and performing stand-up comedy.
Links: Twitter
Dr John Allan
Postdoctoral Researcher 2022-2024
Bio: John worked with our team as a postdoctoral researcher, developing microbial communities for biomanufacturing, and understanding their behaviours in Chi.Bio reactors. He subsequently took up a permanent teaching position at Newcastle College.
Favourite Activities: Drawing and painting, reading and buying books, walking and cycling. Community Biotech.
Links: Twitter
Jan Morlock
Masters Student, 2023-2024
Bio: Jan received a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from ETH Zurich in 2021. As part of his Master’s in Robotics, Systems, and Control at ETH Zurich, he worked with our team developing control systems for microbial communities.
Favourite Activities:Handball, Beach volleyball, Triathlon, and enjoying amazing British food.
Links: LinkedIn
