People
Principal Investigator
Dr Chris Rowlands started his academic career in 2001 at Imperial College, but on the other side of campus, in the Chemistry department. After discovering that he couldn't sketch a hexagon well enough to be any good at synthetic chemistry, he decided to concentrate on physical chemistry, if only because it required remembering the names of fewer chemists. This proved a good career move, and he went on to study for a PhD in the physics and chemistry of chalcogenide glasses at Cambridge University, in the group of Prof. Stephen Elliott. It was there that he learned about glass synthesis, Raman microscopy, analytical chemistry techniques of all kinds, algorithm design, and several new swearwords for use when attempting to get the laser working again.
After leaving Cambridge in 2010, he spent a year at the University of Nottingham, studying the use of Raman microscopy in diagnosing cancer in the group of Dr Ioan Notingher, before receiving a three-year Wellcome Trust MIT Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the group of Prof. Peter So. There he discovered the delights (and curses) of multiphoton microscopy, fluorescence lifetime microscopy, super-resolution imaging, light-sheet microscopy and many more fluorescence microscopy techniques. Five years, several papers, two snowpocalypses and multiple swearwords later, his visa ran out, so he came back to the UK to continue his fellowship back in Cambridge, as a guest in the laboratory of Prof. Clemens Kaminski. While nominally developing new super-resolution techniques, a suspiciously high fraction of his time was actually spent drinking tea and trying to sneak naughty acronyms into serious scientific journals.
The tea and naughty acroyms were clearly a good career move, because in 2017 he was invited to join the Bioengineering Faculty at Imperial College as a lecturer. His current research is focussed on the development of optical instrumentation, particularly for use in biological applications. Nevertheless, the main focus of the lab is on interesting research, so if there's a good idea and the resources are available to do it, the group will have a go. Science is supposed to be fun after all.
Postdoctoral Researchers
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Dr Muhsincan Sesen
Research
Muhsincan develops end-user microfluidic devices for improving human health and well-being by utilising state of the art fabrication and automation techniques. He is currently developing a microfluidic platform capable of reconfiguring itself to synthesize a wide range of different drugs on demand.
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Debora Machado Andrade Schubert
Research
Debora works on two projects: building a system to map fluorescence in a bioreactor, and building a system to create optical filters extremely rapidly.
PhD Candidates
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Abderrahim Boualam
Research
Abderrahim researches super-resolution microscopy, specifically Structured Illumination Microscopy (SIM). He is developing new methods for increasing speed and throughput in SIM.
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Isabell Whiteley
Research
Isabell researches neurophotonic holography, specifically methods to project 3D light patterns into the brain. This can be used to image membrane potentials and control neurons at high speed.
Masters Students
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Marta Llorden de Paz
Research
Marta is developing methods to diagnose Basal Cell Carcinoma using Raman microscopy.
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Pavlos Dimitriou
Research
Pavlos works on data processing techniques for Raman microscopy, with a focus on cancer treatment.
Undergraduates
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Benjamin Warmington
Research
Ben works on high-speed SIM microscopy.
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Alfonso Parra Garcia
Research
Alfonso is investigating the use of deep learning to perform super-resolution microscopy
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Roxanne Sabbag
Research
Roxanne is developing analysis techniques for Raman microscopy, to improve diagnosis of disease and increase throughput.
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Ioana Filipas
Research
Ioana is developing a new type of RESOLFT microscopy, creating a system to make interfering beams of light that move when actuated by a piezoelectric crystal.
Alumni
| Name | Role | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Clara Tavernier | Masters Student | |
| Costanza Di Veroli | Undergraduate student | |
| Ze Lum | Undergraduate student | |
| David Chen | Undergraduate student | |
| Yann Zhong | Undergraduate student | |
| Ife Chinweze | Undergraduate student | |
| Luka Lagator | Undergraduate student | |
| Peerapong Rithisith | Undergraduate student | |
| Gabrielle Convert | UROP student | |
| Weng Foo | Undergraduate student | |
| Christos Argyros | Masters Student |