Personal statement

As the KEA at the University of Strathclyde, I lead the Collaborative Cultures Project, which aims to bridge gaps between academia, industry, and public sectors. My role involves spearheading initiatives that foster inclusive and innovative research environments and co-producing knowledge with a diverse range of stakeholders: • Designing innovative and inclusive funding calls with integrated evaluation mechanisms. • Generating new data on research cultures through creative methodologies. • Conducting workshops to explore and define effective collaboration. • Developing key performance indicators for assessing collaborative cultures. • Investigating reward and recognition mechanisms that extend beyond traditional academic frameworks. Prior to my current role, I was a PDRA studying intrinsically disordered proteins—complexes that are challenging to characterise with conventional high-resolution biophysical methods. My research focused on studying disease targets relevant to human health issues like Parkinsonism using techniques like ion mobility and native mass spectrometry. With a background in Applied Chemistry and Biosciences from Robert Gordon University (1998) and a PhD in Metabolic Engineering from the University of Strathclyde (2004), I bring over 20 years of experience spanning academia and industry. Notably, I was instrumental in the Structural Genomics Consortium at the University of Oxford, a pioneering open public data source project in drug discovery. My research interests also include promoting synthetic biology principles in experimental biology to overcome technological limitations and standardise processes. I am deeply committed to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion and widening participation in higher education. My recent publication, focused on transfection methodologies. Wells-Holland, C., Elfick, A. "Transfection Reflections: Fit-for-Purpose Delivery of Nucleic Acids." (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41580-023-00627-6.