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 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 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.
Dr Kang-Ting Huang
Kang-Ting earned his PhD degree in Biomedical Sciences and Engineering from National Central University (NCU), Taiwan, in 2020. Following this, he joined Prof. Chun-Jen Huang's group as a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering at NCU. In 2024, he transitioned to Prof. Boyer’s Lab at the University of New South Wales as a visiting fellow. His current research focuses on antimicrobial/antifouling polymer materials, tough zwitterionic hydrogels for biomedical and osmotic energy harvesting applications, and functional surface modification.
The team
PhD Students
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.
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
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
Luofeng Yu
Luofeng's research interests focus on the synthesis of antimicrobial polypeptides and their mimetic polymers, polysaccharide-polypeptide/polymer conjugated antimicrobial polymers.
Shiwei Han
Shiwei received his master degree from Beijing University of Chemical Technology, focusing on the study of visible-light-driven PET-RAFT polymerization. In 2024, he joined the Boyer group for his Ph.D. Currently, his research is in the field of depolymerization, aiming to create an environmentally friendly and more sustainable 3D printing method.
Email: shiwei.han@unsw.edu.au
Emile Goldbach
Emile completed his Master’s degree in Polymer Chemistry at the European School of Chemistry, Polymer and Materials of Strasbourg (University of Strasbourg). He is currently pursuing his PhD in the Laboratory of Macromolecular Photochemistry and Synthesis in Mulhouse. His PhD deals with the developpemement of novels materials drived by RAFT polymerization for 3D DLP printing. He is currentlyin the Boyer lab as a Visiting Junior Researcher Fellow in order to work on the volumetric Xolography 3D printing of thermoplastic materials.
Email: e.goldbach@unsw.edu.au
Jooyoung Roh
Jooyoung obtained his Masters degree in Chemistry at the University of Melbourne under the supervision of A/Prof. Georgina Such. His research was focused on the development of pH-responsive nanocarriers for effective drug delivery - enhancing endosomal escape efficacy by the incorporation of guanidine. He joined the Boyer Lab as a PhD candidate to mainly focus on studying the mechanical properties of 3D printed materials involving different types and lengths of block-copolymers (BCPs).
Email: j.roh@unsw.edu.au
Anupama Giri
Anupama earned her Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Midnapore College, affiliated with Vidyasagar University in India. Her passion for innovation led her to research rubber recycling while working at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. She joined the Boyer group in February 2024, where she is pursuing a PhD focused on self-immolative antimicrobial polymers.
Email: anupama.giri@unsw.edu.au
Manish Kumar
Manish received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Chemical Sciences from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Kolkata. Currently, he is a PhD student at the School of Chemical Engineering. His research explores to the chemical recycling of polymers using light.
Email: manish.kumar@unsw.edu.au
Xiu Yuan
Xiu completed his Master by research in the Boyer group in December 2023. He rejoined the group in early 2024 to pursue a PhD dedicated to the innovation of photopolymer resins tailored for 3D printing of nanostructured materials.
Email: y.xiu@student.unsw.edu.au
Tairan Quan
Tairan Quan received his Master of Professional Engineering (Biomedical Engineering) degree at the University of Sydney in 2022. He is conducting his PhD studies at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the University of New South Wales. His research focuses on the treatment of infections caused by microbes using novel biomaterials. At UNSW Sydney, his work focuses on developing novel composites consisting of synthetic polymers and magnesium-hydrogen inorganic particles to kill bacteria and fungi and investigation of the synergistic effects.
Email: tairan.quan@unsw.edu.au
David Reisinger
David obtained his Master’s degree in Chemistry at the Technical University of Munich and performed his thesis in the field of covalent adaptable polymer networks in collaboration with the Polymer Competence Center Leoben. There he is currently pursuing a PhD under the supervision of Dr. Sandra Schlögl. He joined the Boyer lab as a Visiting Junior Research Fellow to continue his work on the controlled and reversible activation of dynamic bond exchange reactions in different vitrimer systems.
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.