Stephen Thomas was born in Toronto, Canada, and completed his GCSEs at Court Fields Community School and A-levels at Richard Huish College in the South West of England. After completing his MChem at Cardiff University working with Prof. Nick Tomkinson, he moved to Churchill College, University of Cambridge for a PhD with Dr Stuart Warren. Postdoctoral work with Prof. Dr Andreas Pfaltz at the University of Basel, Switzerland, was shortly followed by a move to the University of Bristol to join Prof. Varinder Aggarwal FRS as his group Research Officer. In 2012 Stephen moved to the University of Edinburgh as a Chancellor’s Research Fellow. In 2014 he was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship. Stephen and the group have been awarded the 2016 RSC Hickinbottom Award, a Thieme Journal Award, a Pfizer Green Chemistry Research Award, the 2021 Merck, Sharp and Dohme Award, and a 2022 Blavatnik Award finalist.
Group
PI

Stephen Thomas
Postdocs

Milan Bisai
Milan is from India and obtained his PhD from CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory, Pune under the supervision of Dr. Sakya S. Sen in 2021. His doctoral research was focused on the synthesis and reactivity of hypersilylsilylene and catalytic applications of organosilicon and lithium compounds. In October 2021, Milan joined as postdoctoral research associate to the Thomas, Cowley and Ingleson groups at the University of Edinburgh. Currently, he is working on the development of aluminium and zinc-catalysed borylations.

Sarah McOnie
Sarah is from Nova Scotia, Canada and obtained her PhD from the University of Western Ontario under the supervision of Dr Kim Baines. Her research focused on small molecule activation and catalysis by low valent group 14 compounds. Sarah recently joined the Thomas group and will be working on boron-catalysed transformations.

Neil Scott
Originally from Edinburgh, Neil gained an MChem degree from the University of Edinburgh in 2015 then moved briefly into industry, working with Sphere Fluidics in Cambridge on picodroplet-based microfluidic systems for biotechnological applications. In 2016, Neil moved to York for a PhD exploring speciation and mechanism in Pd-catalysed cross-coupling, working with Prof. Ian Fairlamb. Subsequently, in 2021, Neil joined Dr Chris Spicer’s group at York, working on bioorthogonal applications of the carbonylative Suzuki reaction. Neil then worked on a series of projects in the Fairlamb group including investigating catalyst activation mechanisms of a new Pd catalyst (with Johnson Matthey) and catalytic applications of complexes of palladium nitrate. In 2024 Neil returned to Edinburgh to work with Prof Stephen Thomas on transition metal-mediated C–H bond activation for sustainable catalysis.

Alastair Nimmo
Alastair grew up in Cupar in Fife. He completed his undergrdauate MChem at the University of St Andrews where he then continued his PhD research with Prof. Andrew D. Smith focusing on developing novel enantioselective Michael additions using chiral isothiourea organocatalysis. He joined the Thomas group in 2024 on a PDRA funded by Boron: Beyond the Reagent.
Postgraduates

Adrián Moreno González
Adrián is from La Rioja, Spain, famous for its wine. He obtained his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the Universidad de La Rioja. His final year project was studying gold (0) subnanoclusters for the catalytic hydration of terminal alkynes under the supervision of Prof José M. López de Luzuriaga. In 2020, he joined the Thomas group and completed his MRes on boron-catalysed coupling reactions. He will continue in the group for his PhD where he will be working on manganese-catalysed C-H functionalisations funded by AstraZeneca.

Joe Cockcroft
Joe grew up in Ashford, Kent and obtained his MChem degree from the University of York. He undertook an industrial placement at the Centre of Process Innovation formulating electrically conductive adhesives for flexible micro-electronics under the supervision of Dr. Glenn Hurst and Dr. Peter Karadakov. He also undertook a summer project making bismuth vanadate photocatalysts to selectively mediate chemical reactions under the supervision of Dr. Richard Douthwaite. Joe recently joined the Thomas and Garden groups at the University of Edinburgh (in conjunction with Johnson Matthey) with the goal of sustainable C-H functionalisation.

Julie MacLeod
Julie is from the Isle of Lewis, home of the popular Stornoway Black Pudding. She obtained her MChem at Heriot-Watt University which involved a year-long placement at Johnson Matthey (Macfarlan Smith), Edinburgh. She also completed a summer placement at BASF Pharma, Isle of Lewis. As part of the Lee Group at Heriot-Watt, she completed her final-year project which focussed on Minisci-Type C-H functionalisation of heteroaromatic compounds. Julie joins the Thomas group in September 2022 to start her PhD funded by the Royal Society.

Abigayle Boyce
Abigayle grew up in Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire and obtained her MChem from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. In 2022 she undertook a RSC funded summer studentship within the Mansell group (HWU) where she worked on NHC chelating ligands. She continued in the Mansell group for her MChem research project working on Rh catalysts for the C-H activation of alkanes. Abigayle joined the Thomas group (UoE) in September 2023 to begin her PhD funded by Syngenta.

Nathan McRae
Nathan grew up in Findhorn, Morayshire in the north of Scotland. He received his MSci in Chemistry from the University of Glasgow in 2023. This included a year long placement in industry with Bayer Crop Science in Germany with Dr Alexander Sudau focusing on small molecule synthesis. He also completed a two semester long MSci project with Professor David Lennon (UoG), focusing on heterogenously catalysed nitrobenzene reduction to aniline. Nathan joined the Thomas group in September 2023 to begin his PhD funded by AstraZeneca and the EPSRC.

Joseph Hurley
Joe grew up in Hornchurch, Essex and obtained his MChem degree from University of York. His final year project studied the aminodefluorination of fluoro- aromatics using simple phosphine catalysts, under the supervision of Dr John Slattery and Prof. Jason Lynam. Joe joined the Thomas group in September 2024 to begin his PhD funded by Leverhulme Trust.

Luis Caic
Luis was born in Frankfurt, Germany and obtained his MSci in Chemistry from the Goethe University Frankfurt in 2023. In his thesis, supervised by Professor Matthias Wagner, he focused on the synthesis of NHC analogues with various Boron-doped PAH backbones. In September 2024 Luis joined the Thomas group to begin his PhD funded by the EPSRC (Boron: Beyond the Reagent grant).

Federica Palmeri
Federica is from Rome and, after an internship at ETH Zürich, Switzerland, in Prof. Dario Neri’s research group, she obtained her Master’s degree in Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry from La Sapienza University of Rome. She got two research fellowships from the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), before beginning her PhD in Chemical Sciences at La Sapienza, in collaboration with the CNR.
Recently, she has joined the Thomas Group as a visiting PhD student, diverting her scientific efforts to the development of a chemical sensor for heavy metal ions detection. She is also contributing to explore the potential of earth-abundant elements as cost-effective, sustainable alternatives to precious organometallic catalysts for key organic reactions. Beyond organic synthesis, Federica has a deep interest in physics, particularly astrophysics, and enjoys swimming, and she is a big fan of pizza.