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The Current Group

The group works in supramolecular chemistry. You can find group photos above or below if you want to put a name to a face.

Dan completed his doctoral studies at the University of Otago, before undertaking a Rutherford Fellowship at the University of Canterbury (NZ). He started a DECRA fellowship at the Research School of Chemistry at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia in 2020, and began a Future Fellowship at the start of 2024. He’s an associate professor.

Postdoctoral researchers

Jordan Smith is a postdoctoral fellow (another ex-Otago person!) who spends his time making interlocked architectures.

Rosie Goodwin is working 50:50 with us and Annie Colebatch/Nick White. She has been working with Fe(II) and Zn(II) to make crazy assemblies.

Zack Avery did his Honours at the University of Canterbury (NZ) and started his PhD studies with us in 2023. He has recently submitted and is working with us as a postdoc for a few months until his defence. He’s playing around with some cool platinum(II) stuff. His next move is going to be a postdoctoral position with Paul McGonigal at Oxford.

Alvin Li is an independent postdoc working on a collaboration between Trevor Rapson (CSIRO) and Rob Chapman (University of Newcastle) who works out of our space on occasion.

Doctoral students

Jess Algar worked on an undergraduate research project and as a research assistant with us in 2021, then did her Honours project in the group in 2022, winning a University Medal. She took a year out and started a PhD with us in 2024. She’s working on controlling connectivity and conformation in self-assembled systems.

Jason Buchanan is working on a joint PhD project between our group and the Connal group also here at ANU using pairings in metallo-polymers.

Nina Lawson has just finished her Honours project, co-supervised by Nick White, working on subcomponent self-assembly using metal ions and hydrazones, and is now back doing her PhD on similar systems.

Steph Jones did an Honours project with us in 2023. She is now back for more punishment working on her doctoral project on large supramolecules, using our pairings based approach.

Honours students

Bronte-Rae McCutcheon did an undergraduate project with us in 2024 and is now doing her Honours project on some supramolecular self-assembly methodologies.

Liz Elphick worked with Zack on some Pt(II) cages and is now spending her Honours year working on functional Pd(II) cages

Undergraduate project students

Rebecca Hoffman and Alex Brinsmead are working with us in the second half of 2026, on some platinum(II) cages and foldamers.

Past Members

Postdoctoral researchers

• James Findlay (2021) – now working R&D in Melbourne

Honours students

• James Phillips (2023) – went on to a PhD in drug discovery in Biology, ANU
• Jacob Gome (2024) – currently doing a PhD in Chemistry with the Severin Group, EPFL
• Yo Yau (2024) – now about to study to become a teacher

Undergraduate project students

• Kya Lamarra (2023)
• Tim Nguyen (2025)
• Chi Canty (2025)
• Jarell Cubarrubia (2025)
• Jiayi Liu (2025)
• Dev Shah (2026)

Past Photos