The Group

Ortu Group – March 2024

From left to right: Ayse Murad, Yusuf Rivers, Elias Alexopoulos, Yu Liu, Fabrizio Ortu, Harvey Thompson, Alex Bowles.

PhD students

Shifaa Xec Daudo (2025-2029)
Shifaa is originally from Leicester and after a year in industry working with the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS), she carried out her final year MChem project in the group, working alongside Archie on the synthesis and reactivity of low-coordinate rare earth complexes. She joined the group again as an EPSRC DLA PhD student, working on new systems for lanthanide-actinide separation.

Shifaa is a keen chef and baker – a set of skills much appreciated by all other group members. Shifaa is also a keen traveller and loves learning new languages. In fact, Shifaa is a true polyglot and already speaks a total of 5 languages! Working in the group will be the perfect opportunity to add Italian (and Sardinian), Greek and Mandarin to her arsenal.

Chenyang Kan (2025-2029)
Kan is from the Heilongjiang Province, the northernmost (and coldest) region in China. He did his undergraduate at Dalian University of Technology, and during this time Kan carried out a research project under the supervision of Dr Xutong Yang in the field of organo-catalysis. He has now joined the dark side, working at University of Leicester for his PhD in inorganic chemistry, where he is studying lanthanide-based anti-breast cancer stem cell agents in collaboration with Rama Suntharalingam.

Outside the lab, Kan is an all-round musician: excellent guitarist, good drummer and below average bass player. Kan’s other pastimes include cooking family recipes and singing, ranked in the top 10 singers at DUT in 2025 (essentially the DUT equivalent of The Voice). If someone wants to taste his food whilst listening to his heart-warming falsetto, he will be very happy to deliver. In Kan’s own words: “The food is delicious and the voice is good!!!”.

Elias Alexopoulos (2022-2026)
Elias came to the UK from Athens, Greece. He obtained his undergraduate degree at Cardiff University and started venturing in inorganic chemistry looking into homogeneous copper catalysis for his BSc project. He then spent a year doing an MRes at the University of York, where worked with Dr Luke Wilkinson on developing novel Mo2 paddlewheel complexes by performing reactions at the ligand periphery. He then arrived here at Leicester for his PhD, where he is looking into constructing novel rare earth complexes and applying them towards FLP chemistry. He hopes to contribute to the lab by providing good music and by not complaining when his experiments are acting up.

Outside of the lab, Elias enjoys running, cooking, reading (mostly non-fiction) and watching professional tennis, usually cheering for Stefanos Tsitsipas (or shouting at him for yet another 20 minute toilet break in between sets). As if Greek wasn’t complicated enough as a native tongue, he is also trying to get closer to his Italian background by practicing the language.

MChem students

Sukhdip Singh (2025-2026)
Sukhdip came to the UK from Mantua (Italy), the hometown of Virgil – known for being Dante’s guide in the Inferno. Last summer she worked with James Hodgkinson on the synthesis of PROTACs, but then decided to move into inorganic synthesis for her MChem project (wise choice!) to develop new skills and hopefully grow some lovely single crystals. For her project, she is working on Group 2 complexes for mechanochemical reductions, and she is hoping to pursue postgraduate studies after graduation.

Outside the lab, Sukhip likes to spend her time reading. Her all-time favourites are: The White Nights (Dostoevsky), Metamorphosis (Kafka), and as a tribute to Mantua, Virgil’s Latin epic Aeneid – far superior to Greek epics Iliad and Odissey (sorry Elias), and most definitely not a rip-off of said epics. Sukhdip also enjoys gaming, watching Olympic figure skating and showing off her polyglot skills, adding Punjabi to the group’s language repertoire.

Group Alumni

PDRAs

  • Dr Sam Dearman – Postdoc (2024, now Research Scientist at Syngenta)
  • Dr Yu ‘Archie’ Liu – Postdoc (2022-2025, now Postdoc with Robert Kretschmer at Technische Universität Chemnitz)

PhDs

  • Dr Alex Bowles – MChem student (2019-20) and PhD student (2020-24, now Process Chemist at Rolls Royce)
  • Dr Matthew Stevens – PhD student (2019-23, first Postdoc with Prof. Richard Winpenny at the University of Manchester, now Postdoc with Dr David Liptrot, University of Bath)

MChem/MSc students

  • Kale Cooke – MChem student (2021-22, now laboratory technician at Promethean Particles)
  • Ajay Khela – MChem student (2022-23, now Site Chemist at Biffa)
  • Ayse Murad – MChem student (2023-24, now R&D associate at GBUK)
  • Hannah Redmill – MChem student (2021-22, now PhD student with Prof. David Mills, University of Manchester)
  • Yusuf Rivers – MSc student (2024, Graduate Process Development Scientist at AMG Chrome)
  • Yuqing Shao – PhD student (2021-22)
  • Becky Sheppard – Summer placement student (2022) and MChem student (2022-23, now PhD student with Prof. Steve Liddle, University of Manchester)
  • Emily Spray – MChem student (2020-21, now science technician at Fernwood School)
  • Harvey Thompson – MChem student (2023-24, now Graduate Chemist at Robert Hopkins Environmental)

Placement students and visiting students

  • Aaisha Jagot – Summer placement student (2025)
  • Jake Oliver – Summer placement student (2025)
  • Dr Sara Pischedda – Erasmus+ visiting student (2020, now teacher with MiUR Italy)

Group pictures