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UCL Department of Biochemical Engineering

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Department Societies

UCL Biochemical Engineering has three societies: The Clarke Postdoctoral Society, The Beakers Postgraduate Student Society and The Crook Undergraduate Student Society

The Clarke Society

Clarke Society Committee 2022

Founded in late 2018, the Clarke Society’s remit is to provide guidance to UCL Biochemical Engineering postdoctoral research associates (PDRAs), teaching fellows (TFs), and research and facilities staff (RAFT) to maximise the results of their work and maximise their employability. This encompasses the following categories:

  • Academic research and careers
  • Industrial research and careers
  • Enterprise & Entrepreneurship
  • Network
  • Welfare, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

The society acts as a departmental focal point for postdoctoral staff and develops strategies to ensure all members are given the best opportunities to succeed, with the aim of maximising the impact of all Biochemical Engineering staff to UCL’s research, teaching, and community.

Nivedhitha joined the UCL Department of Biochemical Engineering in July 2022. She is currently working as a Research Fellow in bioprocess data analytics and mathematical modelling and at the Future Targeted Healthcare Manufacturing (FTHM) hub at UCL. She received her PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (India) in 2022. During her doctoral research, she focused on the development of mathematical models for implementing process optimization and process control strategies for the production of recombinant therapeutic proteins from bacteria. She holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Industrial Biotechnology from Anna University Chennai (India). Her research interest includes process modelling, simulation, process optimization and process control for various bioprocess applications.

Shaleem completed his M.Eng. in biochemical engineering from University College London (UCL). For his Ph.D., Shaleem joined the healthcare biotechnology group at the University of Cambridge. This research was in collaboration with the Vaccine Production Program Lab at the NIH. Following this, Shaleem continued research in Vaccine Technology; working at UCL for a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Funded consortium project that aimed to create a generic, low-cost, manufacturing platform that standardises the development and production of new recombinant protein vaccines; Oxford Biomedica in the process science innovation group focusing on downstream processing of lentiviral vectors; and now at UCL focusing on vaccine characterisation (ChAdOX and Ad5) funded by the Gates Foundation. 

Marijan received his PhD degree from the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) in 2017. During his doctoral studies at the Microprocess Engineering Research Group (University of Ljubljana), he used to work on the development of miniaturized packed-bed reactors with immobilized enzymes. From 2017 to 2019, Marijan was a PDRA at the Department of Catalysis and Chemical Reaction Engineering (National Institute of Chemistry, Ljubljana, Slovenia). Since 2020, he is a Research Fellow at the UCL Department of Biochemical Engineering and the Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub (Future BRH). His research focus is on the development, evaluation and modelling of continuous-flow microreactors for biocatalytic processes. 

The Beakers Society

Named after both the scientific utensil and a character from The Muppet Show, The Beakers are UCL Biochemical Engineering's postgraduate events committee. They organise four main events each year:

  • Summer BBQ
  • Halloween fancy-dress evening
  • Christmas ball
  • Engineering cup

They work with staff and students not only in UCL Biochemical Engineering but also across the whole of the faculty and the wider university to run a wide range of social events and the committee is elected each year with new members.

The Crook Society

The undergraduate events society is named after Professor Eric Crook, one of the early supporters of Biochemical Engineering research at UCL. He undertook some of the early scale-up studies on biological systems in the 1950s while working in the then UCL Department of Biochemistry and collaborating with engineers in the then UCL Department of Chemical Engineering. Eric Crook was one of the original editors of the journal ‘Biotechnology and Bioengineering’ which is still one of the leading journals in the field. Every year a new committee is appointed by the undergraduate body.