I grew up on the outskirts of Livingston in Scotland.  After completing my BSc (hons) at the University of Edinburgh (1995) I began a PhD with Professor Sabine Flitsch, also at Edinburgh.  In 1999 I then began research as a Post-doc in the laboratory of Professor Carolyn Bertozzi at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Upon returning to the UK in 2001 I was later awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship.  During this time I spent 6 months in the laboratory of Professor Frances Arnold at Caltech (Pasadena, USA) in order to explore the application of directed evolution techniques.

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In 2005 we relocated to The Department of Chemistry at UCL.  The research projects in the group have continued to explore the use of chemistry to understand biological systems, in particular through the assembly of post-translationally modified peptides and proteins using semi-synthesis.