Meet the Boyer Lab
Prof Cyrille Boyer
Cyrille is the team leader of the Boyer Lab at UNSW Sydney. He is a professor and Australian Laureate Fellow in the school of chemical engineering. He has also occupied the functions of deputy head of school (2020-2023) and codirector of Australian Centre for Nanomedicine (2016-2023). He has received numerous awards for his work in polymerisation, including UNSW Research Excellence Award, Prime Minister Prize for Science (Malcolm MacIntosh Prize), ACS Biomacromolecules/Macromolecules Young Investigator Award, ARC Future Fellow (2013-2016) and an ARC Laureate Fellowship in 2022. Cyrille’s research interests cover the synthesis of functional polymers using living radical polymerisation, 3D printing, hybrid organic–inorganic nanoparticles for imaging, nanomedicine and energy storage. Cyrille has published over 350 research articles, including eight patents, which have gathered over 32000 citations.
Current members
Postdoctoral Research Fellows
Dr Nathaniel Corrigan
Nathaniel is a postdoctoral researcher working in the School of Chemical Engineering at UNSW Sydney, in the Australian Centre for Nanomedicine (ACN) and the Cluster for Advanced Macromolecular Design (CAMD). He obtained a PhD in Chemical Engineering in 2019, focussing on the application of visible light mediated reversible deactivation radical polymerization (RDRP) to flow chemistry. Since beginning his postdoctoral research, he has developed additive manufacturing processes using visible light and RDRP to prepare functional polymer and hybrid materials. His research interests include process simplification for functional and nanostructured polymer materials, visible light mediated photochemistry and photopolymerization, and energy storage materials.
Dr Valentin Bobrin
Valentin conducted undergraduate research at the Novosibirsk State University, where he received his Diploma in Chemistry in 2012. He then moved to the University of Queensland, where he received his Ph.D. degree in Polymer Chemistry under the mentorship of Professor Michael J. Monteiro. In April 2021, he joined Professor Cyrille Boyer’s group at the University of New South Wales as a Research Associate, where he explores polymerisation methods and materials science for 3D printing applications. His current research interests are focused on the development of photochemically driven reversible deactivation radical polymerisation methods to control structure of multi-materials at nanoscale and investigate the structure-property-performance relations of these novel nanomaterials for targeted applications.
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Dr Gervase Ng
Gervase obtained his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from UNSW Sydney, Australia in 2022 under the supervision of Prof. Cyrille Boyer. His doctoral research was centred on the application of an oxygen-tolerant high-throughput approach for synthesizing well-defined macromolecules through photochemically driven RDRP. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Cluster for Advanced Macromolecular Design (CAMD) at UNSW Sydney. His current research focuses on the rational design of stimuli-responsive polymeric materials and the development of surface functionalization techniques.
Google Scholar Email: g.b.ng@unsw.edu.au
Dr Laura Wimberger
Laura completed her Bachelor and Master of Science in chemistry at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. She obtained her Ph.D. from UNSW Sydney in 2023 under the supervision of A/Prof. Jon Beves where she studied organic photoswitches with focus on light induced pH changes and their applications. She joined the Boyer Lab as a postdoctoral researcher in mid 2023. Her current research interests are photopolymerisation and 3D printing.
Dr Vinod Kumar Kannaujiya
Vinod holds a dual degree (BS-MS) in Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Bhopal (IISERB). He completed his PhD at UNSW Sydney under the supervision of Dr. Peter R. Wich studying stimuli-responsive polysaccharide-based materials as smart nanocarriers. His current research interests involve the synthesis and application of biomacromolecule-polymer hybrids, specifically DNA/RNA- and protein-hybrids, using Photo-RAFT polymerization.
Dr Maxime Michelas
Maxime completed his master degree in polymers for advanced technologies at the Grenoble Alpes University in France. He then moved to Toulouse where in 2023 he received his PhD in Chemistry from the Paul Sabatier University, specialising in organometallic and coordination chemistry under the supervision of the Prof. Rinaldo Poli and the Dr. Christophe Fliedel. His doctoral research was about designing cobalt(III) carboxylate complexes for switching between radical and ring-opening polymerization mechanisms. In November 2023, he joined the Boyer group as postdoctoral researcher, where he is investigating radical polymerization for manufacturing of (re)programmable materials.
The team
PhD Students
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Tong (Tony) Zhang
Tony’s research interests lie in light mediated polymerization, protein-polymer conjugates and functional materials, with special focus on antimicrobial applications. He is affiliated with the Centre for Advanced Macromolecular Design and the Australian Centre for Nanomedicine.
Email: tong.zhang3@unsw.edu.au
Sebastian Schaefer
Sebastian is a driven PhD candidate exploring synthetic polymers for antifungal applications. He holds a B.Sc. in Molecular Biotechnology and a M.Sc. in Molecular Bioengineering from Technical University Dresden, Germany. Sebastian completed his Master’s Thesis at the University of Granada, Spain. He joined the Boyer Lab in 2020 and is co-supervised by Megan Lenardon from BABS, UNSW. Despite COVID-19-related border closures in Australia, he pursued his research journey at Hans Knoell Institute Jena, Germany, at the Department of Microbial Pathogenicity Mechanisms. Besides research, Sebastian enjoys playing (European) handball and actively serves as a club executive of UNSW Handball Club.
Xiaobing Shi
Xiaobing's research is focused on photopolymerization, 3D Printing and nanomaterials.
Email: xiaobing.shi@unsw.edu.au
Kenny Lee
Kenny received his Bachelor of Engineering (Chemical) at the University of Sydney in 2018. His current PhD research UNSW Sydney is focused on the use of RAFT polymerization and polymerization induced microphase separation to create functional nanostructured materials via 3D printing. His key research areas include photopolymerization, energy storage devices, elastomeric materials, and polymer processing.
Hatu Gmedhin
Hatu completed his Master’s degree in pharmaceutical industry practice (MPharmIndPrac) at the Pharmacy Australia Centre of Excellence at the University of Queensland. Currently he is pursuing his PhD at the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine (ACN) focused on developing multi-functional macromolecules with applications as antimicrobial polymers.
Email: h.ghebremedhin@unsw.edu.au
Md Aquib
Md Aquib received his Master of Science in Pharmaceutics at China Pharmaceutical University (Nanjing, China) in 2019. His research interest centered on the development of anti-cancer drug delivery systems. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD at the School of Chemical Engineering at UNSW Sydney, focusing on designing antimicrobial polymers using photopolymerization.
Xichuan Li
Xichuan's research area is focused on using photopolymerization for volumetric 3D printing, investigating the relationship between resin systems and nanoscale to macroscale material structures.
Email: xichuan.li@unsw.edu.au
Di Wu
Di joined the Boyer lab in 2023. His research interests include the preparation of nanoporous polymers by 3D printing and their application as solid-state electrolytes.
Email: di.wu17@unsw.edu.au
Kensuke Suga
Kensuke received his Master of Science degree from Kyoto University (Japan) in 2022. He is enrolled as a Ph.D. student at Kyoto University and joined the Boyer Lab in 2023 as an exchange student. His current PhD research focuses on fluorescence force probe molecules. His research at UNSW includes the use of RAFT polymerization to incorporate mechanoresponsive molecules and quantitative visualization of nanoscale stress in precisely fabricated 3D objects.
Email: k.suga@student.unsw.edu.au
Puneet Pareek
Puneet is a determined and accomplished researcher with a strong foundation in biomedical engineering, materials science, and drug delivery. Currently he is working on harnessing synthetic polymers for anti-cancer applications. He holds a Master of Technology degree in Biomedical Engineering from IIT Delhi where he worked on creating cartilage regeneration scaffold using cellulose and graphene oxide in Prof. Sachin’s lab. He did his undergraduate studies at BITS Pilani, during which he worked on neuropharmacology in Prof. Somogyi lab at the University of Oxford. Besides research, Puneet enjoys photography and cycling.
Email: p.pareek@unsw.edu.au
Master by Research Students
Prospective students
If you are interested in completing research with the Boyer Lab as part of your Honours or Masters degree, please contact
Prof Cyrille Boyer at cboyer@unsw.edu.au.