Personal statement

I began my journey at Strathclyde as a student in 2012 and graduated with a First-Class Honours degree in Mathematics in 2016. Following this, I obtained a scholarship from the Carnegie Trust to complete a PhD at Strathclyde under the supervision of Dr Matthias Langer and Dr Wilson Lamb. My PhD was focused on the study of discrete coagulation-fragmentation equations, which describe systems consisting of clusters of particles that can merge together and break apart.

I then spent four years working at the Institute of Genetics and Cancer (University of Edinburgh) with Dr Duncan Sproul and Professor Ramon Grima as a Cross-Disciplinary Postdoctoral Fellow. During this time I moved into the field of biomedicine and conducted interdisciplinary biomedical research using mathematical modelling and bioinformatics.

Following this I returned to the department of mathematics and statistiscs at Strathclyde as a Chancellor’s Fellow. My current interests involve the use of mathematical models and bioinformatics to further understand biological systems. In particular, certain parts of DNA can be marked by chemical modifications. These marks play very important roles in normal cellular function and changes in these marks are associated with diseases such as cancer. I am interested in investigating the patterning of these marks within DNA: how they arise, how they are maintained, how they vary throughout the genome and how they can be changed. Answering these questions could aid in the understanding of the biological processes that underlie disease and could lead to potential therapeutic targets. My research combines the processing and analysis of terabytes of raw DNA sequencing data with the development and analysis of appropriate mathematical models describing DNA systems.

I have a passion for teaching and enjoy teaching various mathematical and statistical classes at Strathclyde, as well as a Masters’ level Mathematical Biology course at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in South Africa.