The Fairlamb group currently has 17 members: 1 principal investigator, 1 Research Lab Technician, 1 Technical Specialist, 3 PDRAs, 9 Ph.D. students, and 2 MChem students.
Research Lab Technician
Dr. Charlotte Lee
Charlotte obtained both her MChem and PhD at the University of York. Her PhD project used DFT and parahydrogen enhanced NMR to study catalytic roles of iridium hydrides, under the supervision of Dr. John McGrady and Prof. Simon Duckett. She returned to the University, after a few years working as a school science technician, working as a technician in the undergraduate teaching laboratories as well as in the Fairlamb research group. Charlotte now works with the Fairlamb group and also supporting the other groups in the E114 lab.
Charlotte plays an important role in our group activities in addition to supporting the Departmental ReactIR equipment (IC10 and RIR15 with Si and Diamond probes), based in the Fairlamb laboratory.
Technical Specialist
Dr. Chris Horbaczewskyj
Chris obtained his MChem degree from Manchester Metropolitan University and then obtained his Ph.D. (CASE studentship award) at the University of Leeds, supervised by Prof. Richard Bourne and Prof. Charlotte Willans, focusing on the monitoring, modelling and optimisation of continuous flow reactions using on-line mass spectrometry. Chris undertook a three-month placement at AstraZeneca which allowed the applications and implementation of his work to pharmaceutically relevant examples.
Chris now works as a Technical Specialist to design, test, and implement new automation systems on various chemistries relating to the group. This is accomplished using high throughput reaction screening using a Chemspeed robotics platform, design of experiments and kinetics assays. Chris supports the Fairlamb group with transferring their catalytic reactions into an automated format for screening and large data gathering. Chris is currently working with Prof. Fairlamb and Prof. Lynam on designing a new automated flow platform to assist in screening different catalysts to analyse using time resolved infrared spectroscopy ad the Central Laser Facility.
Post Doctoral Research Associates
Dr. Jonathan Eastwood
Jonny is working as a PDRA with Prof. Jason Lynam and Prof. Ian Fairlamb. His work is expanding that from his Ph.D. project and focuses on photochemically activated [Mn(C^N)(CO)4] and [Mn2(CO)10] and investigating their roles in C-H activation reactions. His work employs ultra fast laser methods and Time-Resolved IR (TRIR) to understand the deprotonation step in the activation of the MnI centre.
Dr. Ksenia Stankevich
Ksenia obtained her BSc and MSc degrees in Biotechnology from Tomsk Polytechnic University (Tomsk, Russia) where she worked on the development of biomaterials that could control pro-inflammatory response of macrophages. During this time she had an opportunity to join the research group at University of Heidelberg (Germany) where Ksenia conducted immunological studies.
Ksenia received her PhD in Chemistry from Montana State University (Bozeman, USA), working with Dr. Matthew Cook on stereoselective allylic cyclizations and rearrangements.
Currently, Ksenia is a PDRA joint between the Dr Chris Spicer group and Prof. Ian Fairlamb group. Her project aims to develop metal-mediated tools for protein modification.
Dr. Sarah Wilson
Sarah is currently a Post doctoral research associate joint between the Dessent group and Fairlamb group.
Sarah completed her PhD in Plasma science and fusion energy at the University of York in 2018, specialising in the development of extreme ultraviolet laser systems. She then worked with XUV Lasers Inc. as a Laser engineering specialist. In March 2020 She stated a Post-doc at Colorado State University working on the development of EUV Imaging in lithography processes where she was Co-Pi on a NSF PFI grant working alongside ASML and XUV Lasers. She was lead investigator for NSF I-Corps grant for bringing research to industry, completing the program in June 2022.
She then completed a research fellowship at the University of Huddersfield under a innovate UK grant working on additive manufacturing alongside Wayland Additive.
Sarah joined the Dessent and Fairlamb groups in October 2023 to work on the development of Mass Spectroscopy and Infrared Spectrometry systems.
Ph.D. Students
Marine Labonde (3nd Year)
Marine obtained her Master’s degree from the University of Burgundy in France, where she worked on the synthesis of ferrocenyl ambiphilic ligands and their use in organometallic C-H activation reactions. She joined the Fairlamb group in 2021 for her Ph.D., sponsored by Bayer AG, on Sustainable Palladium Cross-Coupling Catalysis. This involves studying reactions to gain mechanistic understanding and a better knowledge of catalytic processes.
When she’s not wearing her lab coat, Marine enjoy playing roller derby, and as a good French person, loves eating a lot of cheese.
Stuart Smith (3rd Year)
Stuart attended the university of Glasgow where he obtained his Masters degree in chemistry with medicinal chemistry. As part of this he took a placement year at GSK in addition to research placements in molecular genetics and chemical automation.
Stuart joined started his Ph.D. working with the Fairlamb and O’Brien groups where his work involves automating exploration of the chemical space of Csp2-Csp3 Suzuki-Miyaura cross-couplings, in conjunction with statistical and machine learning approaches, to facilitate reaction development and aid mechanistic understanding of this challenging reaction for industrial pharmaceutical application.
Lucy Tomczyk (3rd Year)
Lucy obtained her MChem degree at the University of York, spending the final year in the O’Brien group working on an alternative synthetic route to (-)-quinine. She then returned to York to begin her Ph.D. (EPSRC iCASE), supervised by Prof. O’Brien and Prof. Fairlamb, focusing on stereospecific Csp3-Csp2 Suzuki-Miyaura cross-couplings of heterocyclic boronates.
Stuart McHale (3rd Year)
Stuart completed his MChem (with medicinal chemistry) degree at Newcastle University working with Dr. Kate Madden investigating small molecule analogues of berberine as potential therapeutics in neurodegenerative diseases. He also carried out an industrial placement with the centre for process innovation working on in-line analysis for continuous twin-screw wet granulation. In 2021 he began his Ph.D. co-supervised by Prof. O’Brien and Prof. Fairlamb working on stereospecific Csp3-Csp2 Suzuki-Miyaura cross-couplings of saturated heterocyclic boronates.
Fiona Brannan (2nd Year)
Fiona completed a BSc in Chemistry at the University of Bristol in 2014, and has since worked as a researcher at Johnson Matthey in the Efficient Natural Resources sector with a focus on catalyst preparation, testing and scale up. In October 2021 she joined the Fairlamb and Green Chemistry groups at York as part of the mobility DTP to research sustainable catalysts for bio-based chemical production, particularly concentrating on the use of Starbon supported Pd-base metal catalysts.
Jake Walder (2nd Year)
Jake did his final year MChem project at the University of York with Prof. Peter O’Brien involving the synthesis of bifunctional 3D building blocks. He started studying for his Ph.D. in 2022 with Prof. Fairlamb with a project titled “Uncovering Competitive Cycles in Cross-Couplings Through Rich-Data Analysis and Reaction Outcomes Gained by High-Throughput Experimental Screening”.
Outside of the lab Jake enjoys playing and watching football as well as playing music and going to gigs. He also enjoys travelling as much as he can. Jake is in his first year of his Ph.D.
Alex Ascham (2nd Year)
Alex completed his MChem degree at the University of York, spending his final year under the supervision of Alison Parkin, working towards the development of an electrochemical assay for Lytic Polysaccharide Monooxygenases. He is now a PhD student in the Grogan and Fairlamb groups, focusing on the “Engineering of Enzymes for the Preparation of Pharmaceutical Amides”. The project is funded by the BBSRC.
Aljawharah Alsalem (1st Year)
Aljawharah received her BSc at King Khalid University in Saudi Arabia in Pharmaceutical Science and her MSc from University of Bath in 2022 where she worked on C-19 norditerpenoid Alkaloids in drug discovery. She joined the Fairlamb and Unsworth groups in 2023 where she will be working on her PhD in Phacelocarpus 2-Pyrone A natural product synthesis.
Barney Franklin (1st Year)
Barney completed his undergraduate degree in mathematics at the University of York. He then went on to do a year at Eluceda as a data analyst as part of an AKT with Prof. Julie Wilson. He is now a Ph.D. student in the Fairlamb group, jointly supervised by Dr. Jessica Hargreaves “Data Analysis of Cross-coupling reactions: Enhanced Mathematical Understanding of Complexity and the Development of a Self-Optimising Robotic System for High-Throughput Experiments.”
In his free time, Barney likes to swim and partaking in Fairlamb group socials.
MChem Students
Jesis Gurung
Jesis is an MChem student supervised by Prof. Ian Fairlamb and Dr. Jonathan Eastwood. His project is looking to gain a mechanistic understanding of Mn(C^N)(CO)4 reactions with alkynes, via key 7-membered manganocycles, leading to hydrogen transfer or reduction elimination products.
Outside of the lab Jesis likes training MMA, hiking and Fairlamb group socials.
Oli Howse
Oli is an MChem student supervised by Prof. Fairlamb looking into the protodehalogenation reaction of 2-pyrones in SMCC reactions.
fairlamb.group 