Previous Members

Dr Joanna Sadler

Jo was awarded a BBSRC Discovery Fellowship in 2019 to work on molecular up-cycling of industrial waste into value-added small molecules using engineered microbes in the Wallace lab. She started a Chancellor's Fellowship at UoE in 2022, and have now established her own independent lab in the area of plastic up-cycling.

Dr Cathrine Spencer

Catherine was with the Wallace from 2021-2022 working on metabolic pathway design in E. coli for the delivery of chemical reagents, funded by the UK Catalysis Hub to in collaboration with the Jarvis Lab in the School of Chemistry, Johnson Matthey, Evonik and Ingenza Ltd.

Dr Jack Suitor

Jack was the first PhD student in the Wallace lab, originally from the United States. His PhD scholarship was sponsored by the Carnegie Trust and which focused on pathway engineering and biocompatible chemistry in Escherichia coli. He graduated in October 2022, and has since moved to Oxford to pursue a career as a development scientist with Nanopore.

Dr Jonny Dennis

Jonathan joined the lab for his doctorate in 2018 as part of the CRITICAT CDT, and his research focused on the development of biocompatible chemistries in a range of metabolically engineered microbes. He graduated in 2023, and has moved to Vancouver, Canada, where he co-founded Selenide Consulting.

Dr Nick Johnson

Nick joined the Wallace lab in 2019 funded by an EPSRC iCASE PhD studentship with AstraZeneca, and his doctoral research focused on the design and application of new enzymes in engineered microbial cells. Nick passed his viva in June 2024, and has since gotten a position as a KTP Associate with Heriot-Watt University.

Dr Nicoll Zeballos Lema

Nicoll joined the Wallace Lab in March 2024 coming from the Fernando Lopez Gallego lab in  Cic BiomaGUNE research centre in San Sebastián, Spain. She worked on the enzyme immobilization of a biocatalyst in a continuous oscillating baffled reactor for accelerated reactions for the  improvement of industrial processes in partnership with Impact Solution, sponsored by Innovative UK. In 2025 she went on to work at the neighboring Laohakunakorn lab looking at cell-free synthesis.

Dr Liz Lau

Liz joined the Wallace Lab in 2022 from her PhD at Heriot Watt in enzyme immobilization and nanomaterials. She worked on a variety of different whole cell biotransformations for production of higher value chemicals in E. coli. 

Liz has moved onto the Sadler lab to work on plastic upcycling.

Dr Rory Gordon

Rory is passionate about technologies which accelerate sustainable development, and joined the Wallace group in 2020 to pursue a doctorate in the School of Chemistry in collaboration with the Thomas Lab, funded by Lubrizol through the EaSi-CAT programme, with the goal to develop sustainable routes to petrochemicals. He passed his viva in 2024 and is travelling and volunteering before starting a job with Bacta in France.

Dr Yuta Era

Cordelia Kao

Cordelia graduated with a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Bristol in 2019. Having always been interested in the interface between chemistry and biology, she went on to obtain an MSc in Biochemistry from the University of Edinburgh. Her MSc dissertation was supervised by Professor Dominic Campopiano and focused on analysing and potentially engineering a multifunctional molecular machine for the production of industrial chemicals. She joined the Wallace lab in 2021 as part of the IBioIC PhD programme in collaboration with Argent Energy. Her research focuses on using wastes as feedstock for the generation of high-value small molecules.

In her free time, Cordelia enjoys reading and watching cooking videos.