Professor Alexander Ruban is a Professor in Biophysics and holds a 'Professeur des Universites (Biochimie et biologie moleculaire)' title awarded by the French Ministry of Education. He obtained his PhD at the Institute of Plant Physiology at the Academy of Sciences of the Ukraine. His research has been instrumental in the discovery of the molecular basis of photoprotection in LHCII and the in vivo configuration and dynamics of higher plant xanthophylls in the thylakoid membrane.
Email: a.ruban 'at' qmul.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)208 207 8826314

Dr Christopher Duffy is an EPSRC sponsored Postdoctoral Researcher with a background in theoretical physics. He obtained his PhD at the Department of Physics, University of Sheffield, UK. The main aim of his research is to model, using a combination of quantum mechanical and molecular dynamical methods, the physical mechanisms at the heart of the regulation of light harvesting in higher plants.
Email: c.duffy 'at' qmul.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)208 207 8823645

Dr Erica Belgio is an EU FP7 Marie Curie Network Experienced Researcher with a background in Biochemistry/ Biophysics. She obtained her PhD at the Department of Biology, University of Milan, Italy. Her research is concerned with the reconstitution of NPQ in an in vitro system using purified Light-Harvesting complexes, lipids and delta pH. Her research is also concerned with the regulation of the photosystem II antenna lifetime in vivo using tobacco mutants.
Email: e.belgio 'at' qmul.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)208 207 8824620

Anna Yeates is a PhD research student with a bachelors degree in Biology from Queen Mary University of London. Her research addresses nuclear-chloroplast compatibility using tobacco-henbane cybrid (cytoplasmic-hybrid) plants. The project focuses on the long and short term adaptive mechanisms of the photosynthetic membrane to varying levels of light. Using this unique model will give fundamental molecular insights into the evolution and cell biology of green plants.
Email: a.m.yeate 'at' qmul.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)208 8824620

Alumni "Gone but not Forgotten"

Dr Tomasz Goral was a PhD research student working in both the Ruban and Mullineaux Laboratories between 2007-2011. His research was concerned with the dynamic movement and migration of thylakoid membrane proteins in vivo in various mutants of Arabidopisis thaliana using the Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching (FRAP) technique and the dependence of photosystem II macrostructure on composition of antenna proteins within the grana membranes. He now works as an electron microscopist in the Minerology Department of the Natual Histroy Museum, London, UK.

Dr Matthew Johnson was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Ruban Lab between 2007-2011 and was sponsored by the BBSRC/ EPSRC. During his time in the Ruban Lab his research was concerned with the structural and molecular mechanistic investigation of the basis of light harvesting control in the higher plant photosynthetic membrane using techniques such as freeze-fracture electron microscopy and time-resolved fluorescence. He now works as a Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield, UK.

Dr Ahmad Zia was a PhD Research student in the Ruban Lab from 2007-2010. He obtained his PhD on "the role of the xanthophyll composition of the Photosystem II antenna in shaping the structure and dynamic functions of the thylakoid membrane" in March 2010 and now works as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Washington State University, Pullman, USA.

Dr Katherina Petrou was a visiting Postdoctoral Researcher with a background in phytoplankton ecophysiology and photobiology. She obtained her PhD at the Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Technology Sydney, Australia, specialising in Antarctic sea-ice algal photo-physiology. Her research at the Ruban lab involved investigating the quenching dynamics of higher plants in vitro to changes in pH at different LCHII pre-aggregation states. As of 2012, she is working as a Research Fellow at the University of Technology, Sydney.
Email: Katherina.Petrou 'at' uts.edu.au