I am interested in realising the potential of AI for natural sciences through designing new algorithms and applying them to solve challenges across healthcare and sustainability. My recent focus has been on foundation models and new approaches to generative AI.
I work as a Research Scientist in the AI and Robotics team at the Ellison Institute of Technology, Oxford. Previously, I was a Staff Research Scientist at IBM Research, where I led a programme of research on AI for molecular and materials design.
Research highlights include the discovery of antimicrobial peptides (one paper on cover of ACS Nano) and carbon dioxide capture molecules and porous solids (cover of Digital Discovery).
At IBM, I collaborated with researchers in the Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation to help companies adopt AI. My research helped AstraZeneca improve the design of new drug modalities and Ingenza to design antimicrobial peptides.
I received a PhD in physics from the University of Edinburgh. My thesis reported the first electronically coarse-grained molecular model of water and showed it predicts water behaviour throughout its phase diagram. My research established electronic coarse-graining as arguably the most powerful technique for accurate and efficient calculation of forces between molecules.
My work has been recognised with a Forbes 30 under 30, a 2021 IBM Pat Goldberg Award (selected out of thousands candidates), five IBM Technical Accomplishments and two journal covers. My PhD was shortlisted for a national prize and so was my undergraduate research. I also won multiple presentation awards. During high school, I competed in national maths and physics Olympiads (earning silver and bronze) and co-authored my first conference paper on anomalous spreading in the mid Atlantic ridge.
Besides research, I dance tango, lift weights and enjoy communicating science. I co-founded a volunteering organisation in Manchester, wrote about the connection between science and art, worked on algorithmic music composition and made a glass sculpture expressing my research.
I read emails at hello(at)[this-domain].com and my DMs are open on LinkedIn.