Dr Mary Wood

After an undergraduate degree in Chemistry in York, including a year spent working at DSM in Sittard-Geleen in the Netherlands, I came to Cambridge in 2011 to do a PhD with Professor Stuart Clarke studying adsorption at the metal/liquid interface, mainly focusing on small molecules in organic media. I stayed on with the Clarke group as a post-doc looking at corrosion of metals and ingress of water between epoxy films and metallic surfaces, before moving to the University of Birmingham to take up another post-doc looking at the electrochemistry and structure of unsupported lipid bilayers. I was then fortunate enough to be awarded an HFSP fellowship to study bioelectronic interfaces using a suite of sophisticated surface study techniques. I took up this fellowship initially in the Laboratory of Nanobiotechnology (LNB) at EPFL in Switzerland, before moving back to Cambridge for my final year.

As a passionate eco-warrior, my interest in these bioelectronic systems lies in exploring how they can help us to address looming challenges in terms of energy and chemical supply. I aim to use my background in physical and surface chemistry to apply unusual but extremely powerful techniques such as neutron reflectometry to these complex buried interfaces that remain poorly understood. I have greatly enjoyed the multidisciplinary nature of both the LNB and Zhang groups, where there is a general enthusiasm to work together for creative problem-solving in this rapidly-growing area of research.