People

Who's who in the Hardwick Lab.

Kevin Hardwick, PhD

Group Leader

  • PhD with Hugh Pelham, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge.
  • Lucille P. Markey Visiting Fellow, working with Andrew Murray, UCSF.  
  • Wellcome Trust RCDF, ICMB, University of Edinburgh.
  • Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow, ICB, University of Edinburgh.
  • Professor of Molecular Genetics.
Photo of Kevin Hardwick on a mountain peak with his dog

Thomas Davies, PhD

Thomas completed his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry in 2018 from the University of Bath, alongside a professional placement year at the University of Leicester Department of Genetics, where he worked on a long-term project exploring the restoration of fertility in novel hybrid Saccharomyces strains and their potential applications in the brewing and biotechnology industries.
 
Thomas joined the Hardwick lab in 2021 as a Wellcome Trust iCM PhD student, jointly supervised by Jeyaprakash Arulanandam. Here his focus is on characterisation of key catalytic components of the Spindle Assembly Checkpoint (SAC) in the pathogenic yeast Cryptococcus neoformans, and the potential applications of this knowledge in the design of novel drug targets in cryptococcal disease.
 
Outside of the lab, he enjoys hiking and landscape sketching, literature, and holding his cats up like Simba in the Lion King.  
Photo of Thomas Davies in a garden with a cat on his shoulder

Ardra Suresh

Ardra is a 4th year Darwin Trust PhD student. Her PhD project is understanding the role of mitotic phosphatases in silencing the spindle checkpoint of Cryptococcus neoformans.  She hopes to find potential therapeutic targets to kill these fungi, using both structural and cell biology techniques, in collaboration with the JP lab. 
 
She enjoys reading fiction, teaching and choreographing dance outside of the lab.
Photo of Ardra Suresh sitting in an armchair in front of a window

Haomio Cheng

Haomiao is a 4th year PhD student in Hardwick lab. She is working on the role of Cryptococcus Bub1 in the Spindle Checkpoint using synthetic biology approaches. 
 
In her free time, she enjoys hiking, travelling and kitchen experiments.
Photo of Haomio Cheng sitting on a bench beside a bronze statue with a city scape behind her

Tymek Pacamaj

Tymek is a 2nd year PhD student in the Hardwick Lab. He is studying mitotic cyclins and how they relate to titan cell formation (a key pathogenic process he hopes to inhibit) through the use of fluorescence microscopy and microfluidics.
 
He loves hiking, rock climbing, and travelling.
Photo of Tymek Pacamaj with a cityscape in the background

Previous lab members: where are they now?

Koly Aktar (PhD, 2023)

PDRA with Alexander Kelly, NIH, USA

Two graduation photos, one with Kevin Hardwick and graduating student, the other with two graduating students

Ioanna Leontiou (PhD/PDRA 2022)

Senior Associate at Pfizer, Clinical Trial Experience, Thessaloniki

Sadhbh Soper Ni Chafraidh (PhD, 2019)

Government Forensic Scientist, Dublin

Priya Amin (PhD, 2018)

PDRA with Anna Castro and Thierry Lorca in Montpellier (CRBM-CNRS)

Three lab group members pose for a photo

Karen May

Former Wellcome Trust Post-doc.  Now Discovery Research Platform for Hidden Cell Biology Project Manager.

Onur Şen

Former PhD Student.  Now a post-doc with Andrew McAinsh, Warwick

Lab group members, wearing carnival masks, pose for photo

Ivan Yuan

Former PhD student.  Now working at the Edinburgh Genome Foundry

Group photo of lab members seated around a resataurant table

Kostas Paraskevopoulos

Former post-doc.  European Food Safety Authority, Scientific Projects Co-ordinator, Parma, Italy

Vincent Vanoosthuyse

Former post-doc.  Now a PI at the ENS de Lyon

Sjaak van der Sar

Former Wellcome RA and PhD student.  Now working at IDT

Alicja Sochaj

Former SULSA PhD Student.  Now a post-doc in Wroclaw, Poland

Judith Zich

Former Wellcome PhD student.  Now a post-doc at the MRC HGU, Edinburgh

Four lab group sit outside on a bench and pose for photo

Josefin Fernius

Former Wellcome PhD student.  Now a post-doc in Linköping, Sweden

Matylda Sczaniecka

Former Darwin Trust PhD student.  Now a post-doc with Ian Jackson, Cambridge

Laura Milne

Former MRC PhD student.  Now at Charles River Laboratories

Patricia Rischitor

Former post-doc.  European Research Executive Agency, Research Programme administrator, Brussels

Emma King

Former BBSRC PhD student.  Now at University of Nottingham

Victoria Anderson

Former Wellcome Trust PhD student.  Now at AdaptImmune, Oxford.

Rebekka Valsdóttir

Former post-doc.  Now at The Icelandic Centre for Research, Reykjavik

Julie Blyth

Former research associate, now working with Adele Marston and COIL, WTCCB.

Leigh Campbell

Former post-doc.  Now a clinical biochemist, Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh

David Millband

Former Wellcome Trust PhD student.  Now a Process Development Project Leader at Hospira Inc. in Adelaide, Australia

Michelle Brady

Former research associate

Raymond Johnston

Former PhD student.  Now at Invitrogen Corp.