Meet the Team
The group in Christmas 2024
Click here for more photos of the group
Group Leader
Professor of Computational and Molecular Biophysics
Depts. of Genetics and Chemistry, Associated Member—Dept. of Physics, University of Cambridge
Rosana Collepardo (she/her)
Contact: rc597 (at) cam.ac.uk
Hometown: Mexico City, Mexico
Professor, University of Cambridge (2023–2025)
Assistant Professor, University of Cambridge (2020–2023)
Winton Advanced Research Fellow (Group Leader), Department of Physics, University of Cambridge
Postdoc, University of Cambridge (Daan Frenkel and David Wales groups)
Marie Curie International Incoming Fellow, Institute for Biomedical Research Barcelona (Modesto Orozco group)
Faculty for the Future Fellow, New York University (Tamar Schlick group)
DPhil in Physical and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Oxford (David Manolopoulos group)
MSc in Theoretical Chemistry, University of Oxford (David Manolopoulos group)
BSc in Chemistry (specialization in Scientific Computing), National Autonomous University of Mexico
Independent Research Fellows
Herchel Smith Research Fellow (2024–present)
Dr Jan Huertas (he/him)
Contact: jh2366 (at) cam.ac.uk
Hometown: La Seu d’Urgell, Catalonia
Postdoct, University of Cambridge (2021-2022)
PhD, Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine (2016–2021)
MPhil in Bioinformatics for Health Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (2014–2016)
BSc in Human Biology, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (2010–2014)
Research interests: Jan research centres on how pioneer transcription factors and other proteins transform nucleosome plasticity to subsequently control chromatin’s nanoscale structure and its phase separation properties
Postdoctoral Researchers
Postdoctoral Research Associate (2024–present)
Dr Maria Julia Maristany (she/her)
Contact: mjm261 (at) cam.ac.uk
Hometown: Cordoba, Argentina
PhD in Physics, Winton Scholar, University of Cambridge (2020-2024)
Research interests: Julia’s research interests centre on the physics of multi-component chromatin droplets, chromatin structure, nucleosome plasticity, phase transitions of protein solutions, and data-driven scaling laws.
Postdoctoral Research Associate (2024–present)
Dr Pin Yu Chew (she/her)
Contact: pyc32 (at) cam.ac.uk
Hometown: Singapore
PhD in Chemistry, Winton and Oppenheimer Scholar, University of Cambridge (2021-2025)
MSci in Natural Sciences, University of Cambridge, 2020
Research interests: Pin Yu work with our group centres on investigating the thermodynamics that control the properties of multicomponent condensates and leveraging genetic algorithms to manipulate such properties.
Postdoctoral Research Associate (2024–present)
Dr Ignacio Sánchez Burgos (he/him)
Co-supervised by Prof. Jorge R. Espinosa (Complutense University of Madrid)
Contact: is490 (at) cam.ac.uk
Hometown: Madrid Spain
PhD in Physics, University of Cambridge, EPSRC Scholar, Collepardo Group (2020-2024)
Research interests: Ignacio is interested in developing simulation methods to probe the phase behaviour of a diverse range of solutions, from colloidal electrolytes to RNA–protein mixtures.
Postdoctoral Research Associate (2023–present)
Dr Andrés Tejedor Reyes (he/him)
Co-supervised by Prof. Jorge R. Espinosa (Complutense University of Madrid)
Contact: at949 (at) cam.ac.uk
Hometown: Madrid, Spain
PhD in Complex Systems, Madrid Polytechnic University, Ramírez group (2023)
Research interests: Andrés has developed several computational methods to investigate the phase behaviour of protein solutions, both in equilibrium and non-equilibrium conditions. He brought his expertise in characterising the viscoelasticity of polymer solutions to the group, allowing us to investigate how the material properties of biomolecular condensates are regulated by a diverse range of parameters. Most recently, he led the development of our newest version of the Mpipi model: Mpipi-Recharged, which improves the description of highly-charged protein condensates.
Postdoctoral Research Associate (2025–present)
Dr Roman Staňo (he/him)
Contact: rs2365 (at) cam.ac.uk
Hometown: Košice, Slovakia
PhD in Physics, University of Vienna (2020–2025)
MSc in Physical Chemistry,, Charles University of Prague (2018–2020)
BSc in Chemistry, Charles University of Prague (2015–2018)
Research interests: Roman uses molecular simulations to investigate phase behaviour of peptide condensates, coacervates and polymers, both in and out of equilibrium. Currently, he is trying to develop a model able to capture pH-dependent behaviour of peptide condensates and formation of pH gradients in protein droplets.
Graduate Students
EPSRC PhD Scholar in Chemistry (2021–present)
Mr Kieran Russell (he/him)
Contact: kor20 (at) cam.ac.uk
MSci in Natural Sciences, University of Cambridge, 2020
Research Interests: Kieran has developed a new chromatin model, which allows us to enormously increase the scope of our investigations….stay tuned for super exciting news!!!
Hometown: Brighton, UK
Gates Cambridge PhD Scholar in Chemistry (2024-present)
Mr José Ignacio Pérez López (he/him)
Contact: jip29 (at) cam.ac.uk
Research Interest: Ignacio research focuses on investigating how the variations in histone proteins alter the structure of chromatin and the physicochemical properties of phase-separated chromatin droplets
Hometown: Seville, Spain
Oliver Gatty PhD Scholar in Chemistry (2024-present)
Ms Yifang Chen (she/her)
Contact: yc638 (at) cam.ac.uk
Research Interests: Yifang research focuses on developing new methods to investigate the multiscale liquid-like organisation of chromatin, from single fibers to multi-component condensates.
Hometown: China
Gates Cambridge PhD Scholar in Chemistry (2025–present)
Ms Sára Tóth (she/her)
Contact: st958 (at) cam.ac.uk
Google DeepMind MPhil Scholar in Scientific Computing (2024–2025)
Research Interest: Physicochemical rules determining the composition of multi-component condensates
Hometown: Hungary
Undergraduate Students
Hayoung Choi
Part III Biochemistry (2024-2025)
Co-supervised by Katherine Stott
Rebecca Driver
Part III Chemistry (2024-2025)
Past Members
Prof. Jorge R. Espinosa
Currently: Assistant Professor at the Complutentse University of Madrid
Previously in the Collepardo group: Oppenheimer Research Fellow (2019-2023); Roger Ekins Fellow at Emmanuel College (2019-2023); Postdoctoral Research Associate (2018-2019)
Jorge collaborates actively with our group in many different projects, including liquid-liquid phase separation and pathological ageing of proteins solutions
Prof. Jerelle A. Joseph
Currently: Assistant Professor at Princeton University
Previously in the Collepardo group: Junior Research Fellow at King’s College (2020-present); Postdoctoral Research Associate (2019-2020)
Dr Anne Aguirre
Currently: AI Engineer at Avanade
Previously: ERC-funded student of the CDT (MPhil+PhD) in Computational Methods for Materials (2019–2024)
Dr Charles Phillips
Currently: Machine Learning Scientist – R&D at Intellegens
Previously: ERC-funded student of the CDT (MPhil+PhD) in Computational Methods for Materials (2019–2024)
Dr Esmae Woods
Previously: PhD Student (2019-2024) co-supervised by Prof. David Wales
Dr Stephen Farr
Currently: Research Software Engineer at Acellera
Previously: EPSRC-funded PhD student of the CDT (MPhil+PhD) in Computational Methods for Materials (2016–2020)
Dr Adiran Garaizar
Currently: Research Scientist at Bayer
Previously: EPSRC and Winton-funded PhD student in Physics (2018-2022)
Dr Akshay Sridhar
Currently: Postdoc at Erik Lindahl’s lab
Previously: Winton-funded PhD student in Physics (2017-2020); MPhil in Scientific Computing (2016-2017)
Dr Zahra Fahmi
Currently: Bioinformatics Scientist at Illumina
Previously: Postdoctoral Research Associate (2019-2021)
Dr Rob Welch
Currently:ExaBioSim Project
Previously: Postdoctoral Research Associate (2021-2023)
Sophie Merchant
Visiting Summer Student (2019)
Part II Physics Student
Trinity College, University of Cambridge
Sivapalan Chelvaniththilan
MPhil in Physics (2016-2018)
Gates Scholar
Co-supervised by Prof. Daan Frenkel
Miguel García Ortegón
MPhil in Scientific Computing (2015-2016)
La Caixa Scholar
Co-supervised by Prof. Ulrich Keyser
Currently: PhD student in Data Science at Cambridge University
Our collaborators
- Tuomas Knowles (University of Cambridge)
- Srinjan Basu (University of Cambridge)
- Ernest Laue (University of Cambridge)
- Daan Frenkel (University of Cambridge)
- David Wales (University of Cambridge)
- Tamar Schlick (New York University, USA)
- Shankar Balasubramanian (University of Cambridge)
- Debayan Chakraborty (University of Texas at Austin)
- Sergei Grigoryev (Penn State University, USA)
- Modesto Orozco (Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Barcelona, Spain)
- Guillem Portella (University of Cambridge)
- Michele Vendruscolo (University of Cambridge)
- Richard Friend (University of Cambridge)
Previous collaborators
- David Manolopoulos (University of Oxford)
- Thomas Markland (Stanford University)