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Elaine Cloutman-Green
Edward Ralph Nicholls
Employed for the past 17 years with a charity – Cerebra for Brian Injured Children & Young People. My current role CEO (Interim), prior to this - Head of Finance & Administration. Cerebra is a registered Children’s charity where we undertake high level research and directly support children, families and professional practitioners for children who have a neurological condition. Within my current role I am responsible for all HR related issues, review, developing and promoting effective organisation development, through our people. Implementing the longer term strategic plan. In my previous role of Head of Finance & Administration I was responsible for all Governance matters, financial administration and reporting. I am also the current Data controller, Health & Safety representative and mentor to a number of SMT staff, work closely with the Board of Trustees.
Prior to joining Cerebra, Business Director with Pembrokeshire County Council (local Authority), Prior to this worked for many years in Toronto, Canada, as a Corporate Accounting Analyst for a commercial Hotel company. Trained as an accountant (CIMA) in London with British Telecom before securing professional and further company roles. Have held a number of very senior Accounting and Financial roles including internal Company, Director of Finance, Auditor and Lecturer in Accounting & Business Studies. I have also worked within Manufacturing as Managing Director.
Afua Acheampong
Afua Acheampong is the Race Equality Portfolio Lead at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), where she plays a pivotal role in driving the university's race equality initiatives. Her work includes leading the Race Equality Action Group, which is responsible for QMUL's application for the Race Equality Charter. This initiative aims to tackle racial disparities within the university by developing and implementing strategies that promote the representation and career progression of staff and students from under-represented and marginalised backgrounds.
Her work includes addressing the ethnicity pay gap, increasing the number of BAME individuals in senior roles, and fostering an inclusive environment that reflects the diverse demographics of Greater London. Afua's previous roles, including her position as Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Manager at the Open University and her leadership at Nottingham Trent University, have equipped her with extensive experience in promoting racial equality and diversity within academic institutions
Ahmed Shibl
Dr. Ahmed Shibl is a multidisciplinary scientist with a background spanning microbiology, biotechnology, and bioinformatics. He currently serves as a member of the ISME Early Career Scientists Committee, a Champion within the National Microbiome Data Collaborative, and a former ASM Young Ambassador. With a broad interest in leveraging multiomics approaches, his research aims to better understand the functional adaptation of microbiomes in diverse ecosystems, ranging from the ocean to the human body. His current work focuses on elucidating the potential influence of microbial communities on host interactions and climate change events. Ahmed’s overarching goal is to address knowledge gaps concerning the intricate links between microbes, genomes, metabolites, and health/disease markers, ultimately contributing to solutions for contemporary societal and environmental challenges.
Andre Antunes
Dr André Antunes is an environmental microbiologist, having devoted most of his research life to the study of microbial communities in marine and extreme environments. He is particularly interested in microbial biodiversity, changes in microbial community structure across environmental gradients, adaptations to extreme conditions and in cross-disciplinary research in the fields of geomicrobiology and astrobiology.
Gary Hogben
Gary is a professional Microbiologist specialising in the water treatment sector. Since 1995 he has managed a busy laboratory with the UKAS accreditation process. He has overall responsibility for the company’s quality system accreditation to each of ISO9001, ISO14001, ISO45001 and ISO17025. He also has lead responsibility for Legionella Control Association membership.
Gary is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and has Chartered Biologist status. He has Senior Membership of The Water Management Society.
Gary's specialist field is the detection and control of Legionella, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, E. coli and other bacteria in water. He has extensive experience and contribute to the national and international agenda for Legionella control.
Komang Ralebitso-Senior
As the current Associate Dean (Diversity and Inclusion) for the Faculty of Science, I oversee the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the University’s EDI Strategy and Action Plan. Therefore, I facilitate and support an embedding of diversity and inclusion principles into teaching, learning, research and enterprise for an equitable experience for staff and students. I have held post-doctoral positions with: BioMEMS Laboratory of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; and NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Oxford (now Wallingford). As Senior Lecturer in Microbial Ecology, my research interests in microbiome science and technology are to understand and exploit complex interacting microbial communities. We achieve this by applying molecular techniques for the analysis of ecosystems that are impacted by decomposition, biochar, pollutants and waste products.
Nasmille Larke-Mejia
I am an Environmental Microbiologist with a PhD from the School of Environmental Sciences at University of East Anglia (2018). Before coming to the UK, I studied a BSc in Biology, a BSc in Microbiology and a MSc in Environmental Microbiology at Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia).
During my first studies, under the supervision of Dr Jenny Dussan, I isolated and characterised bacteria thriving on burnt oils and the explosive ANFO, both prevalent in the daily mining operations of Cerrejón, a northern Colombian open-pit coal mine (where I grew up). During my doctoral studies, under the supervision of Professor J Colin Murrell, I characterised novel soil and phyllosphere microorganisms that use isoprene as their sole source of C using techniques including stable isotope probing (SIP), amplicon sequencing and metagenome analysis.
Post PhD, I have focused on using metagenomics to investigate low-abundance microorganisms. My first postdoctoral placement was at Earlham Institute, working for the GROW Colombia project, where I studied the soils affected by different agricultural practices in Colombian sugarcane plantations and a fungal pathogen for coffee plants.
Currently, I am a postdoctoral researcher with Dr Matthew Gilmour at the Quadram Institute, UK, specializing in metagenomics and pathogen identification using short- and long-read sequencing.
Jake Bell
Jake completed his undergraduate degree in Human Nutrition at Kingston University, which included multiple summer internships in the microbiology laboratories. He also undertook a placement year at the Jodrell laboratory of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, working on plant-microbe interactions through various molecular methods. Jake completed his PhD at Royal Holloway (University of London) under the supervision of Professor Paul Fraser, in plant and microbial molecular biology.
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- @_JakeBell1
Sally Cutler
Sally's passion for microbiology started with a BSc degree course from University College London from which she graduated in 1981. Her research interests are largely focussed upon spirochaetes and bacterial zoonoses, particularly those with an impact upon developing countries. Sally has been a member of AMI since the days when it was the Society for Applied Bacteriology.