Current students and alumni

We welcome around 20 postgraduate students to study with us in a wide range of chemistry and biochemistry research areas.

Ferrier PhD Students 2023

Current students

PhD candidates at the Ferrier Research Institute are listed below, along with their thesis title and supervisors.

 

Lani Campbell: Investigating transcriptional regulation to enhance natural product biosynthesis in Penicillium paxillin

Supervisors: Emily ParkerLuke Stevenson


Ben Clarke: Measuring Stachybotrys mycotoxins in New Zealand’s leaky buildings

Supervisors: Simon HinkleyJoanne Harvey


Patrick Cunningham: Transition state inhibitors for radical SAM enzymes as ways to treat viral disease

Supervisors: Lawrence Harris, Joshua Buckler


Florian de Pol: Unveiling the evolution of allostery in adenosine triphosphate phosphoribosyl transferases

Supervisors:  Emily Parker, Gerd Mittelstadt


Sarah Draper: Chemical programming to control self-assembly of peptides

Supervisors: Gavin Painter, Margaret Brimble


Mahdieh Ghofrani: Quantifying heparan sulfate in biological systems

Supervisors: Simon Hinkley, Susie Carnachan


Taylor Hibbard: Characterisation of tolypocladium album genes required for indole-terpenoid biosynthesis

Supervisors: Emily Parker, Andrew Munkacsi


Hsin-Chuan (David) Hsu: Development of proximity induced bioorthogonal conjugation reaction

Supervisors: Regan Anderson, Richard Furneaux, Todd Lowary


Lucy Hughes: Drug chaperones for rare diseases

Supervisors: Farah Lamiable-Oulaidi, Scott Cameron


Thomas Lang: Towards anti-tuberculosis drugs

Supervisors: Farah Lamiable-Oulaidi, Peter Tyler, Wanting Jiao


Rory Lehane: Synthesis of 4'-substituted and N-methyl iminomucleoside analogues for use as antiviral treatments

Supervisors:  Lawrence Harris, Andreas Luxenburger


Cara Luiten: Determining the polysaccharide composition of New Zealand lake snow

Supervisors: Simon HinkleyTracey Bell


Natasha Nipper:  Decoration of the indole ring in indole diterpene biosynthesis

Supervisors:  Emily Parker, Rosannah Cameron


Daniel Phipps: Synthesis of heparan sulfate mimetics

Supervisors: Simon Hinkley, Joanne Harvey


Richard Thom:  Transition state analysis of acid ceramidase

Supervisors: Farah Lamiable-Oulaidi, Scott Cameron, Peter Tyler


Daniel Torres: Broad spectrum antivirals

Supervisors: Lawrence Harris, James Wood


Yehezkiel (Kiel) Victorio:  Development of metabolic engineering tools for endophytic fungi

Supervisors: Emily Parker, Yonthan Lukito


Adam Hannaford:  Building a multidisciplinary pipeline to mine and verify unique indole diterpene cyclases that generate interesting cyclised structures

Supervisors: Emily Parker, Daniel Berry


Rue Parker:  To be confirmed

Supervisors: Emily Parker, Daniel Berry


Wayne Kavora:  To be confirmed

Supervisors: Phillip Rendle, Kajitha Suthagar

Alumni

Students who have completed a Master’s or PhD degree at Ferrier are listed below with a link to their LinkedIn profile (where available).

Arran Stewart

Yu Bai

Rudy Bundela 

Taylor Cooney

Mitch Ganley

Parastoo Khajeaian 

Preeti Kundu

Roselis Landaeta

Emily Mason

Juby Mathew

Rose McLellan

Michael Meijlink

Charlotte Page

Yoan Preux

Hannah Robinson

Javier Ruiz Vargas

Liam Sargison

Sam Spijkers-Shaw

Daniel Sheppard

Rinu Shrestha

Elizabeth Ure

Kyle Van De Bittner