Halliday Lab Members

Dr. Damian Balfagón Sanmartin, biologist. v1dbalfa@exseed.ed.ac.uk @DamianBalfagon

Damian's work focuses on the study of plant responses to light stress and the role of Phytochromes in them.

PhD Students

Matthew Lincoln, Darwin Trust Postgraduate Student, biologist matt.lincoln@ed.ac.uk @Matt_L96

Matthew's research focuses on the convergence of light and sugar signaling.

Rist Van de Weyer, Darwin Trust Postgraduate Student, biologist R.Van-De-Weyer@sms.ed.ac.uk @RistVdw

Rist is particularly interested in how Phytochrome Interacting Factors operate in Soybean and might improve crop architecture by using synthetic biology tools such as CRISPR and Mobius cloning.

Rist is also the co-founder of @Ujamaaspice a company that sources ethical single-origin spices and tea from Zanzibar and Tanzania.

Marissa Valdivia Cabrera, CONACyT Postgraduate Student, biotechnologist M.Valdivia-Cabrera@sms.ed.ac.uk @MarissaValCab

Marissa is interested in the ecological relevance of phytochrome sensor-signalling and in the design of synthetic constructs to study protein dynamics.

Marissa was the president of the Mexican Society in the University of Edinburgh from 2021-2022 and has been part of the Edinburgh University Consultancy Club as a Life Science consultant to start-up Biotech companies.

Philip Butlin, EASTBIO Postgraduate Student, biologist phil.butlin@ed.ac.uk

Phil's research focuses on how phytochromes interact with the circadian clock to regulate plant development.

Amy Newell, EASTBIO Postgraduate Student, biologist a.s.newell@sms.ed.ac.uk @_AmyNewell

Amy's research focuses on how phytochrome activity affects translation and protein production

Mengke Zhou, Darwin Trust Postgraduate Student, biologist M.Zhou-44@sms.ed.ac.uk

Mengke is interested in photobiology and focuses on regulations through phytochromes.

Undergraduate Assistants

Jake McKie, Molecular Biologist

Past Lab Members

Tara Wight

Andrés Romanowski

Uriel Urquiza-García

Johanna Krahmer

James Furniss

Ejaz Hussein

Ammad Abbas

Ashwin Ganpudi

Karine Prado

Daniel Seaton

Deyue Yang

Gabriela Toledo-Ortiz

Harriet Jones

Yin Hoon Chew

Kelly Stewart

Henrik Johansson

Gavin Steel

Joe Hemsted

Keun Pyo Lee

Jayne Griffiths

Fran Salisbury

Eve-Marie Josse