Lecturer, Dept. Chemistry, University of Cape Town, South Africa, 1992-1996; R&D Manager Fine Chemicals Corporation Ltd., South Africa, 1996-1998; Research Fellow/Senior Lecturer and Deputy Director of the ARC Centre for Green Chemistry, Monash University, Australia, 1999-2006; Senior Marie Curie Transfer of Knowledge Fellow, Unilever, UK, 2006-2008; and Director JLS ChemConsult Ltd., UK, 2008-2015. Since joining the University of Bath in 2010, she has been a Group Leader in the Department of Chemistry and is now a Reader in the Department of Chemistry and the Training Director of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Sustainable Chemical Technologies. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (since 2004) and a Titular Member of Division III of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).

Research in our group is focused on the use of renewable raw materials, particularly cellulose and related polysaccharides, for the development of functional materials for a range of applications from recyclable electronics through formulation ingredients to tissue engineering scaffolds. Ranging from fundamental studies of physical chemistry through to applications, our work is funded from a range of sources (EPSRC, Innovate UK, British Council, BBSRC and industry) and is always highly collaborative, as we work with tissue engineers, chemical engineers, experts in electrochemistry and enzymes, materials and synthetic chemists and, in many cases, closely with industrial partners.