Clare Bakewell
Clare received her MChem degree from the University of Leeds (2010), before moving to Imperial College London to conduct a PhD under the supervision of Profs Charlotte Williams and Nick Long, which was followed by an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship. After spending a year working for the start-up company Econic Technologies, she returned to Imperial for a postdoc with Prof Mark Crimmin. In October 2018, she started her independent career as a Ramsay Memorial Fellow at University College London. She joined the Department of Chemistry as King’s as a lecturer in October 2021.
Outside of the lab, Clare is mum to two little people who keep her very busy! She also loves reading, travelling with her family and finding great restaurants.
The Group
Matt de Vere-Tucker (PDRA)
Matt joined us in January 2024 and his project will be focused on low oxidation state main group compounds. Matt carried out his undergraduate degree in sunny Cardiff (2013-17), spending a year in warmer Hong Kong (2015-16) as part of it, before doing his PhD with Dr Andreas Stasch in the colder St Andrews (2017-22), with a project looking at alkaline earth metal compounds. After that, he spent a year as a postdoc at the very wet University of Manchester in the Willcox group (2023). In his spare time Matt is an avid reader and enjoys following Aston Villa’s rise in Europe!
Imogen Squire (PhD)
Imogen is a final year PhD student, working on low oxidation state main-group complexes. She completed an MChem at the University of York in 2022, where she won the McCoy prize for scientific communication. Her Masters work focused on making dimolybdenum paddlewheel complexes. Outside of the lab Imogen is a keen runner and has even qualified for the London Marathon!
Michelangelo Tritto (PhD)
Mickey is a final year PhD student funded by the KCL Net Zero centre. He previously completed his MSci project in the group (2023), making main-group metal hydrides, exploring their reductive chemistry and analysing them computationally. Mickey was awarded the prestigious King’s Layton Science Research Award for his MSci project. Alongside his PhD, Mickey coaches the West London Penguin water polo team and enjoys taking us through the match stats.
Rohil Anandkar (PhD)
Rohil is a 3rd year PhD student, investigating using electrochemical methods to analyse common main-group reducing agents (jointly with the Diez Perez group). He completed his MSci degree at Imperial College London, where his MSci project focused on the functionalization of gold surfaces for advanced spectroscopic investigations. In his free time Rohil plays cricket and has recently picked up his violin again.
Gabriel Bohorquez (PhD)
Gabriel is a 3rd year PhD student researching the synthesis and reactivity of heterobimetallic complexes of main group and f-block metals, jointly with the Musgrave Group. He completed his MChem degree at the University of Bath, where his research focused on the synthesis and reactivity of NHC supported copper phosphides. In his spare time Gabriel enjoys salsa dancing and playing chess.
Richard Du (PhD)
Richard is a 2nd year PhD student, researching bimetallic magnesium complexes and the reactivity of these complexes. He completed his MSci degree at Imperial College London with his project focusing on zinc fluoride complexes. Outside of chemistry Richard enjoys climbing and regularly impresses his lab mates with his ‘climb of the week’ videos.
Tianyu Wang (PhD)
Tianyu graduated from King’s College London in 2025 with a BSc in Chemistry. Shortly after, he joined Imperial College London for his master’s project on heteroleptic copper(I) complexes as photoredox catalysts, supervised by Dr Silvia Díez-González and Prof James Bull. Tianyu joined the Bakewell group in October 2026 and started his quest to unleash the potential of the aluminium(I) trimer. In his free time, Tianyu enjoys cooking all kinds of food and playing board games with friends.
James Hemmett Ambrose (MSci)
James is a 4th year (MSci) student in the group – and is going to attempt to translate some of our chemistry into the solid state amongst other things! In his spare time James enjoys watching thrillers and dramas and is currently enjoying ‘How to Get Away with Murder’!
Alumni
Katie Hobson (PhD)
Katie was the first PhD student in the group (2018-2021), co-supervised by Prof Claire Carmalt. Her work focused on the synthesis of new aluminium hyrides and the exploration of their reactivity. She won the UCL Clarke Prize for best inorganic PhD project. Katie now works in chemical policy.
Malavika Bhide (PDRA)
Malavika was the groups first PDRA (2022). She received her MSci degree from UCL in 2018, after which she continued there to do her PhD working in the groups of Dr Caroline Knapp and Prof. Claire Carmalt. Her PhD was a joint synthetic and materials project and involved the synthesis, structural studies and AACVD of zinc precursors for thin film photovoltaics.
Rick Collins (PDRA)
Rick was a PDRA in the group (Aug 23-July 24). Prior to this Rick completed his PhD with Prof. Richard Layfield (University of Manchester 2021, visiting student at University of Sussex) and a PDRA with Dr. Mark Chadwick (2021-2023) at Imperial College.
Kam Poon (MSci)
Kam was an MSci student in the group (2019-2020) working on the development of photoswitchable ligands for controlled catalysis. He received the 2020 UCL Ronald Nyholm prize for his research project. Kam went on to conduct a PhD at the Univeristy of Oxford with Prof Charlotte Williams.
Martha Jennings (MSci)
Martha (2019-2020) was an MSci student in the group working on the synethesis silver precursors in collaboration with Dr Caroline Knapp.
Juliana Morell (MSci)
Juliana completed her MSci research in the group (2022-2023) working on complexes containing metal-metal bonds. She was previously summer student in the lab, as part of the Kings Undergraduate Research Fellowship. She worked for GSK in Oral Health Regulatory Affairs from 2020-2021 as an industrial placement student.
Tayyibah Syeda (MSci)
Tay was an MSci in the group (2023-2024) working on the synthesis of aluminium iodide complexes.
Aaiman Bharmal (MSci)
Aaiman was a 4th year MSci student, investigating dimeric Mg(I) complexes and their ability to activate bonds such as C-X, C-C and C-O in small molecules. After graduating from King’s she’s taken up a consultant role back home in India!
Divia Uthayan (MSci)
Divia was a 4th year (MSci) student. She investigating the reactivity of a low oxidation aluminium timer with small coordinating molecules.
Gabrielle Aguila (MSci)
Gabi was a 4th year (MSci) student in the group. She worked on computationally investigating the stability and reactivity of novel low oxidation state aluminium compounds.
RSC Dalton South Meeting November 2022
Lab 012 post-conference drinks
Katie’s Viva November 2021
Celebrating Katie passing her PhD viva with the Knapp group
2019-2020
Daniel Neo, Kam Poon, Martha Jennings, Katie Hobson, Clare