Postdoc Advisors

The School has a group of Postdoc Advisors who are available to meet with you.

How to contact an advisor

You are welcome to contact any of the Advisors. If you are unsure who to choose please email  sbs-postdoc-advisors@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk. They will aim to meet with you within two weeks of your request or if they will not be available within that time period, direct you to one of the other advisors.

What can an advisor help with?

• Career Development - including helping you to find contacts in non-academic careers for advice
• Fellowships - including helping you to find contacts who are previous recipients of fellowships you wish to target
• Any issue related to your work as a postdoc in SBS - where appropriate directing you to the best source of support

Who are our Postdoc Advisors?

Liz Bayne

I am a group leader in the Institute of Cell Biology, with interests in non-coding RNAs and epigenetics in yeast. Following a six-year postdoc in Edinburgh, I initially set up my lab at the University of Dundee, funded by an MRC Career Development Award. After two years there I moved back to Edinburgh to take up a Chancellor’s Fellowship, and am now a Reader in Epigenetics.

 

Elizabeth.Bayne@ed.ac.uk

Atlanta Cook

I am a structural biologist and biochemist in IQB3. I did my PhD in Oxford and went on to do a postdoc initially at the EMBL in Heidelberg before moving with my postdoc supervisor to the Max Planck Institute in Martinsried, Germany. I moved to Edinburgh in 2011 with an MRC Career Development Award to start my own group and currently hold a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship.

 

Atlanta.Cook@ed.ac.uk

Tilo Kunath

I obtained my PhD from the University of Toronto in 2003 investigating novel stem cell systems. My postdoctoral studies at the Institute for Stem Cell Research at the University of Edinburgh were focused on neural induction and differentiation of mouse and human embryonic stem (ES) cells. I have run my own laboratory in the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine in Edinburgh since 2007, where I have pioneered the use of patient-specific induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell technologies to model Parkinson’s disease.

Tilo.Kunath@ed.ac.uk

Dan Nussey

I am an evolutionary ecologist based at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology. I did my PhD here in Edinburgh, left to post-doc in Cambridge for a couple of years, and then returned to Edinburgh on a NERC post-doctoral fellowship, after which I was lucky enough to get a BBSRC David Phillips fellowship and then be taken on as a permanent member of staff.  I have worked part-time (4 days a week) since 2014, to allow me to spend more time with my two young children. I am currently a Postdoc champion for SBS, and part of the BBSRC mentoring scheme for Future Leader / Discovery fellows.

 

Dan.Nussey@ed.ac.uk

Gerben van Ooijen

I work at the Institute of Molecular Plant Science, where I study circadian timekeeping on a cellular level in algae and plants. I received my PhD from the Molecular Plant Pathology group at the University of Amsterdam, and then switched research topic when I came to the Centre for Systems Biology at Edinburgh (later re-named SynthSys) as a post-doc. I worked there on multiple shorter contracts for 4 years, until I secured a University Research Fellowship from the Royal Society to start my own lab in 2012. I am also a Postdoc Champion and a Postgraduate Advisor for the School. Although I work full-time, I usually manage to balance work with family life as a father of two small children.

Gerben.vanOoijen@ed.ac.uk

Jenny Regan

I am a Lecturer in the Institute of Immunology and Infection Research, where my group works on sex differences in innate immunity and ageing. I did my PhD in developmental biology at UCL, switching fields to immunity during my first postdoc in Lisbon, where I received both an EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship and an FCT (Portuguese) Fellowship. I returned to UCL as a senior post-doc, researching ageing as part of large EU consortium. After a short time as a Visiting Scientist in the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne, I came to Edinburgh in 2017 to start my position here. I work full-time, but as I have a young son, I try to strike a good work-life balance.

Jenny.Regan@ed.ac.uk