Alumni profiles
We are proud of the successes of all of our former students and strive to continue to include them as part of the ICR community as they move forward in their careers. Of those that graduated between 2010 and 2019 that completed a non-clinical research degree, 91% of non-clinical graduates went directly into active scientific research roles, with 3% of non-clinical graduates going into science and research-related roles. Of the 91% of non-clinical graduates in active scientific research roles, 88% were in academia, and 12% in industry all over the world. Meet some of our alumni below, and read about their experience of studying at the ICR and their career journeys so far.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: PhD 2016 Dr Charlotte Pawlyn completed her PhD at The Institute of Cancer Research in 2016. She currently holds an NIHR Clinical Lectureship and continues to build her career as an academic clinician.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: PhD (non-clinical) 2003 Dr Ana-Teresa Maia completed her PhD at The Institute of Cancer Research in 2003. She is now the Vice-Director of the Centre for Biomedical Research at the University of Algarve.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: PhD (non-clinical) 2014 Dr Fiona Rowan was awarded her PhD in Biology and Chemistry at The Institute of Cancer Research in 2014. She is now an early-career academic scientist, pursuing her goal to one day lead her own research lab.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: PhD (non-clinical) 1998 Professor Dan Lloyd completed his PhD at The Institute of Cancer Research in 1998. Remaining within academia, he is now the Deputy Head of School of Biosciences at the University of Kent. His research into DNA damage, and how this relates to cancer and its treatment, underpins varied teaching, research and managerial responsibilities.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: MD(Res) 2016 Dr Hugh Harvey is an experienced radiologist who was awarded an MD from the Institute of Cancer Research in 2016. He has recently set up his own digital health consultancy.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: PhD 2001 Professor Francesca Buffa carried out her PhD at the ICR, developing mathematical models to predict how cancers respond to radiotherapy – and how hypoxia affects this response. She is now at the University of Oxford where she leads a computational and systems biology laboratory.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: PhD (non-clinical) 1997 Dr Isla Furlong completed her PhD at The Institute of Cancer Research in 1997. She now works as a patent attorney, specialising in advising start-up companies and academic institutes on biopharmaceutical patent issues.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: PhD (clinical) 2012 Dr Ingrid Slade currently holds a prestigious Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship carrying out work into ethical issues related to public health and genomic medicine. She completed her PhD in Genomic Medicine at The Institute of Cancer Research in 2012.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: PhD (non-clinical) 2015 Dr James Mui completed his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, in 2015. He now works in industry where he continues to use his expertise in drug discovery.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: PhD 2008 Dr James Mclaughlan completed his PhD at the Institute of Cancer Research, London in 2008. He currently is an associate professor at the University of Leeds where he specialises in developing novel technologies for cancer imaging and therapy.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: PhD 2017 Dr Lorna Suckling completed her PhD at the ICR in 2017 and has worked in both academia and industry, building expertise in early-stage drug discovery. Her current role is at GSK where she leads a team that specialises in high-throughput screening and automation.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: PhD 1982 (non-clinical) Professor John Amuasi has led a distinguished career in medical physics at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) for over 40 years. In 1976, he came to the UK to carry out his MSc and PhD at the ICR.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: PhD (clinical) 2009, Postgraduate Diploma in Oncology 2010 Dr Susana Banerjee completed her PhD and second year of her Postgraduate Diploma in Oncology at the ICR, and is now a Consultant Medical Oncologist at the Royal Marsden. She continues her research collaborating with the ICR and is the lead for clinical and translational trials in gynaecological cancers.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: PhD (non-clinical) 1997 Dr Oliver Rausch completed his PhD at The Institute of Cancer Research in 1997. He is now Vice President Research & Development at STORM, a spin-out company from Cambridge University that is developing potential new cancer treatments.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: PhD (clinical) 2010, Postgraduate Diploma in Oncology 2013 Dr Yap undertook a PhD in Molecular Pharmacology in the Division of Cancer Therapeutics from February 2007 to August 2010. As a Medical Oncology Specialist Registrar, he also undertook a Postgraduate Diploma in Oncology at The Institute of Cancer Research, which he completed in October 2013.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: PhD (clinical) 1995 Professor Tim Eisen completed his PhD in 1995 at the Marie Curie Research Institute in association with the Institute of Cancer Research. He is currently Head of External R&D and Strategic Alliances at AstraZeneca and Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Cambridge. His special interests are the treatment of melanoma, lung and kidney cancers.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: PhD (non-clinical) 2014 Dr Heba Saliem completed her PhD at The Institute of Cancer Research in 2014. Now at the University of Oxford, she was awarded a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship to develop new computational methods to interpret data from large-scale imaging studies in 2017.
Alumni Profile
Completion date: PhD (non-clinical) 1984 Professor Trevor McMillan was awarded a PhD in Biophysics at The Institute of Cancer Research in 1984. He is now the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Keele.