The Jones Group (minus Zainab and Piny, @ PhD Symposium, July 2025; & minus Peter and Khushal @ Christmas lunch December 2025)

Past group photos: September 2024, May 2023, April 2023, May 2022, December 2019, August 2018, January 2018, January 2017, February 2016, January 2015.

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Dr Christopher R. Jones

Chris was born in Nottingham in 1983, moved south to Milton Keynes during his time at secondary school, and arrives in London via Cambridge and Oxford. In his spare time he enjoys playing and watching a variety of sports and music.

Please see ‘About Chris‘ for his academic history.

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Zainab Shafique (Ph.D. student, 4th year)

Zainab Shafique was born and raised in Pakistan. She obtained her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Pharmacy from COMSATS University Islamabad. Then she moved to QMUL to work on the design, synthesis and biological testing of new MC₄R agonists supervised by Dr Chris Jones (SPCS) and Dr Peter McCormick (WHRI). Her research is funded by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan.–

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Peter Lock (Ph.D. student, 4th year)

Peter was born in North Wales and moved to London in 1998. He graduated from Imperial College London with a PhD in Petroleum Engineering and has worked extensively in petrophysics, modelling flow through porous media. He is a Doctoral Scholar in the CDT in Data Centric Engineering at QMUL and his current research is in the use of virtual screening machine learning based methods to aid in the design and synthesis of cannabinoids with therapeutic potential.

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Kaicheng Zhang (Ph.D. student, 3rd year)

Kaicheng Zhang was born in Inner Mongolia, China in 1997. He obtained his bachelor’s degree from Ocean University of China in 2020 and his master’s degree from Shenyang Pharmaceutical University in 2023. Then he moved to QMUL, co-supervised by Stellios Arseniyadis, working on the development of new synthetic methodologies for a range of applications across materials and medicinal chemistry. In his spare time, he likes cooking and hiking. His research is funded by the China Scholarship Council (CSC).

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Laura Aguilar (Ph.D. student, 2nd year)

Laura Aguilar was born in Hidalgo, México, in 1998. In 2021, she obtained her bachelor’s degree in petrochemical engineering from the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City. She has worked as a research assistant at the Mexican Institute of Petroleum, focusing on the development of catalysts for the production of ultra-low sulphur fuels. In January 2024 she moved to London to continue her education at QMUL, working on the investigation of green solvents for sustainable synthetic chemistry innovation, supervised by Dr. Chris Jones and funded by NPI. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking and practicing both recreational and competitive cycling.

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Phinyada Kankraisri (Ph.D. student, 1st year)

Piny is working on synthetic methodology developments for innovations in antibody drug conjugates, in a collaboration with AstraZeneca & co-supervised by Stellios Arseniyadis.

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Azaan Hafeez (Ph.D. student, 1st year)

Azaan is working on combining AI-driven ligand design, chemical synthesis and in vitro testing to develop new cardiovascular treatments. His project is co-supervised by Arianna Fornili and Andrew Tinker.

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Blair Hirst 

(QMUL CHE700 4th Year MSci Project Student 2025/26)

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Haseeba Farid

(QMUL MSc in Chemical Research Project Student 2025/26)

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Former Group Members (reverse chronological)

note: former summer students are listed at the bottom of the page

Mi Zhang, Ph.D. student (viva December 2025)

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Khushal Siddiq, Ph.D. student (viva November 2025)

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Haseeb Ur Rehman Shah, Ph.D. student, (viva July 2025)

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Seetha Rajkumar, QMUL (CHE700 4th Year Project Student 2024/25)

Sophiha Srithar, QMUL (CHE600 3rd Year Project Student 2024/25)

Qi Li, Ph.D. student (viva October 2024)

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Roland Kulanda (QMUL MSc Student 2022-24)

PhD student at Kings College London

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Najwa Arafah, QMUL (CHE600 3rd Year Project Student 2023/24)

Yana Uskova, QMUL (CHE600 3rd Year Project Student 2023/24)

Yue Xu, PhD student (viva May 2023)

Senior Scientist at CNNC, China 

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Isabel Baskaran

(QMUL CHE700 4th Year Project Student 2022/23)

PhD student at UCL

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Yingying Wu,QMUL (CHE750 4th Year Project Student 2022/23)

Wilfred May, QMUL (CHE600 3rd Year Project Student 2022/23)

Denis Husak (QMUL MSc Student 2020-22)

Process Chemist, Pharmaron

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Athena Inthinathan (QMUL MSc Student 2021/22)

Process Chemist, Pharmaron

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Umamah Chowdhury (QMUL CHE700 4th Year Project Student 2021/22)

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Aisha Sharif (QMUL CHE600 3rd Year Project Student 2021/22)

Yaser Showman (QMUL CHE600 3rd Year Project Student 2021/22), Research Scientist, NPL

Yannic Werling, Ph.D. student (viva July 2021)

Synthetic Chemist, Concept Life Sciences

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Urvati Dhirajlal, QMUL MRes Student 2020/21

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Abdelhak Kerkoud (QMUL 4th Year Project Student 2020/21)

Aneesah Mukadam (QMUL 3rd Year Project Student 2020/21)

Research Analyst, LGC.

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Florion Peni (QMUL 3rd Year Project Student 2020/21)

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Ben Slater, PDRA (2019-2020).

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Dr Le Fang, Ph.D. student (viva September 2020)

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Yan Yang Phd student (2016-2020).

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Brenda Benet, QMUL (CHE750 4th Year Project Student 2019/20)

Product Development Chemist, Johnson Matthey

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Lukasz Wojtysiak, QMUL (CHE600 3rd Year Project Student 2019/20)

Masters in Organic Chemistry: Drug Discovery, UCL

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Mahzabin Ahmed, QMUL (CHE750 4th Year Project Student 2019/20)

Daniel Crombie, QMUL (CHE600 3rd Year Project Student 2019/20)

Rheem Usman, QMUL (CHE600 3rd Year Project Student 2019/20)

Dr Weitao Sun, Ph.D. student (viva November 2019).

Synthetic Chemist at Bioisostere, China.

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Dr Yun Yang, Ph.D. student (viva September 2019).

Process Chemist at Wuxiapp, China.

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Eva Dias, (QMUL MSc Project Student 2018/19)

Chemistry Technician, LightOx Ltd.

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Saya Osman, QMUL (CHE600 3rd Year Project Student 2018/19).

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Dr Ed Neal, Postdoctoral student (2017-2019).

JSPS Fellow at the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan.

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Dr Piera Trinchera, Postdoctoral student (2016-2018).

Process Chemist at Pharmaron

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Dr Fahima Idiris, Ph.D. student (viva December 2018).

Postdoc with Dr James Bull, Imperial College, then postdoc with Prof Matthew Todd, UCL. Now Process Chemist at Pharmaron.

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Dr Cécile Majesté, Ph.D. student (viva August 2018)

Working at the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES).

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Lilla Gombos, QMUL (CHE750 4th Year Project Student 2017/18)

PhD with Professor Siegfried Waldvogel at the University of Mainz.

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Hayleigh Alexis, QMUL (CHE750 4th Year Project Student 2017/18)

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Kajanthini Kodeswaren, QMUL (CHE750 4th Year Project Student 2016/17)

Development Scientist at Ortho Clinical Diagnostics

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Shoaib Maroof, QMUL (CHE750 4th Year Project Student 2016/17)

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Jane Smith, QMUL (CHE750 4th Year Project Student 2015/16)

Diversity and Equality Initiatives Officer, Faculty of Science and Engineering, QMUL.

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Amira Amzour, QMUL (CHE750 4th Year Project Student 2014/15)

Junior Policy Researcher, Government Office for Science.

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Norman Arokianathar, QMUL (CHE750 4th Year Project Student 2014/15)

Ph.D. with Prof. John Murphy, University of Strathclyde.

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Nada Kurdi, QMUL (CHE750 4th Year Project Student 2014/15, & summer student in 2013 & 2014)

Ph.D. at the CDT in Synthesis for Biology and Medicine at the University of Oxford.

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Younes Fegheh-Hassanpour, QMUL (CHE750 4th Year Project Student 2013/2014)

Ph.D. with Prof. David Hodgson, University of Oxford.

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Gregory Craven, Oxford (Part II, MChem 2012/2013)

Ph.D. with Prof. Alan Armstrong, Imperial College, London.

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Summer & Visiting Students

2025: Oishi Khan Khan (QMUL, RSC Summer Bursary).

2024: Azaan Hafeez (QMUL, QMUL STRIDE bursary), Moritz Napiontek (TUM, BSc project, Germany).

2023: Najwa Arafah (QMUL, RSC Summer Bursary), Heike Friedrich (Nürnberg – Technische Hochschule Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm, DAAD internship, Germany).

2021: Roland Kulanda (QMUL, RSC Summer Bursary), Luca Selinger (Freie Universität Berlin, DAAD internship, Germany).

2019: Abid Barat (Reading, RSC Summer Bursary), Maria Uttendorfer (Universität Regensburg, DAAD internship, Germany), Mara Torres (QMUL).

2018: Weiling Kha (Fontys University, Netherlands), Omkar Kulkarni (IIT Roorkee, India), Brenda Benet (QMUL, RSC Summer Bursary), Camille Pouthe (ESCOM, France), Julian Kleber (Freie Universität Berlin, DAAD internship, Germany).

2017: Akanksha Sharma (QMUL), Alexandra Clerc & Clémence Le Couvoir (ESCOM, France).

2016: Lilla Gombos (QMUL, RSC Summer Bursary), Ossie Ihecherenoma (Imperial College) & Jérémy Chommanivong (ESCOM, France).

2015: Greg Coates (QMUL, RSC Summer Bursary), Nada Kurdi (QMUL), Aileen Cooney (Imperial College) & Tom Grafton-Schlanker (UCL).

2014: Nada Kurdi (QMUL).