Life Sciences

Dr Pauline Addis, MSc, PhD

Dr Pauline Addis loves good science and good science communication. She obtained her BSc (Hons) from Imperial in 2003 and her MSc from Hartpury University in 2007, for which she was awarded the Dodson & Horrell trophy for top student. She then undertook her PhD at Newcastle University in equine biomechanics, investigating how changing mechanical properties of tendon with age affect horses’ gait. The PhD led to several publications, presentations at international conferences and public engagement events such as Bright Club. During her PhD Pauline gained a deep understanding of anatomy, physiology and how to gain the co-operation of an excitable foal. After graduating in 2012, she stayed at Newcastle, switching from horses to humans, and spent 11 years in the Faculty of Medical Sciences demonstrating the impact of medical research for two iterations of the Research Excellence Framework (REF). In this role, Pauline worked with researchers in areas from fundamental biology to public health, via cancer research, genetics and neuroscience, and therefore has an enviably broad understanding of a massive range of medical research. In 2023 she moved to the NIHR Innovation Observatory at Newcastle University, a national horizon scanning organisation. Here, she specialises in synthesising evidence from a range of sources and presenting it in formats ranging from peer-reviewed journals to Pecha Kucha. Pauline also acts as a peer reviewer from various journals and therefore understands the importance of submitting a clear, concise manuscript.

Dr James Allen, PhD

Dr James Allen is an experienced biochemist who headed a research group in the  Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, UK, from 2006–2011. His  research spanned mitochondria, biophysics, enzymology, parasitology,  microbiology,  bioinorganic chemistry, bioenergetics, evolution, structural biology  and cell biology.  Dr Allen has published over 40 papers in international journals,  most as a principal  author, and has peer reviewed extensively. James took his first  degree in Chemistry  at Oxford then undertook a DPhil, also at Oxford, on the  structure-function relationship of an intricate bacterial respiratory enzyme. He did postdoctoral work on cytochrome assembly in bacteria, before being awarded a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship to investigate mitochondrial biogenesis in trypanosome parasites. Dr Allen’s technical expertise includes a wide range of biochemical, biophysical and genetic approaches, including bacterial and eukaryotic genetics and molecular biology; protein chemistry; protein purification; enzymology; enzyme kinetics (rapid reaction and steady state); absorption and other spectroscopies; protein-protein interaction methods; electrochemistry and bioinformatics.

Dr Shailesh Jain, PhD

Dr Shailesh Jain received his doctoral degree in Molecular Microbiology from the Ulster University, Northern Ireland. After pursuing postdoctoral research for a year at the University of Manchester, UK, Shailesh started his career in the publishing industry. He has published five academic research manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals and has presented at several prestigious conferences. He currently works as a part-time freelance scientific editor, with a focus on editing manuscripts written by authors whose first language is not English. His areas of specialization include Microbiology, Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, Genomics, and Proteomics

Dr Arshad Makhdum, MSc, PhD

Dr Arshad Makhdum obtained an undergraduate degree in Applied Chemistry from the University of Greenwich. He went on to earn an MSc and PhD in clinical pharmacology from University College London (UCL). Postdoctoral studies in allergic disease took him to the position of Senior Research Fellow at UCL. Then, he was recruited to the Scripps Institute in San Diego (CA, USA), where he focused on exercise-induced asthma. He also taught physicians and surgeons the basic science underpinning allergic disease at this elite research centre. Dr Makhdum returned to the UK and started a career in academic publishing, reaching the position of Publisher at Elsevier (Oxford, UK) and Senior Editorial Project Executive at Phase II Communications (Surrey, UK).

Dr Makhdum has been a STEM editor and medical writer for two decades. He specializes in editing content from authors whose first language is not English. Dr Makhdum also has considerable expertise in what is required for a manuscript to be accepted in a particular journal. His areas of specialization are internal medicine, surgery, anaesthesia, allergic disease (particularly asthma), clinical pharmacology, physiology, molecular biology, and chemistry. He has been working with OSE since November 2012.

He is an Associate Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, Member of the British Pharmacological Society, Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, as well as a Member of the European Association of Science Editors, European Medical Writers Association, Medical Journalists Association, and Guild of Health Writers.

Dr Dean Rea, BSc, PhD

Dr Dean Rea obtained a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of East Anglia. This included an intercalated year conducting synthetic organic chemistry research within the Medicinal Chemistry Department at GlaxoSmithKline. This was followed by a PhD in Structural Biology within the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick, focusing on structure-function relationships in peptidase enzymes, primarily involving protein crystallography, enzymology, and molecular biology. He subsequently explored plant circadian clock proteins, microbial aromatic degradation enzymes, carotenoid dioxygenases, microbial transcriptional repressors, bacterial cell wall biochemistry, and antibiotic resistance.

Since 2015, alongside scientific editing and proofreading, Dean has worked in ecological restoration of the uplands in the Peak District and other areas of the UK. This includes tree-planting for woodland creation; hedge-planting for farmland biodiversity enhancement; re-wetting and blanket bog restoration for biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and flood mitigation through building stone and timber dams, spreading heather brash, and planting sphagnum moss; and ecological monitoring, specialising in botanical and bird surveying.

Dean has co-authored more than 30 scientific papers, many as first author, and now applies his broad knowledge of the life sciences to scientific editing and proofreading, alongside conducting practical conservation, ecological restoration, and biodiversity monitoring work.

Dr Ashley Rivenbark, PhD

Dr. Ashley Rivenbark earned a B.S. in Biological Sciences with double minors in Genetics and Botany from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, and then earned a PhD in Toxicology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine studying breast cancer epigenetics. After obtaining her PhD, she further completed a postdoctoral fellowship at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center funded by the American Cancer Society that focused on epigenetic mechanisms of gene regulation.

She has achieved the Excellence in Science Award from the American Society for Investigative Pathology (ASIP) and has published >25 papers, reviews, and book chapters.

She is currently a Project Manager for Climate Finance Solutions, a Contract Grant Editor/Manager for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Freelance Scientific Editor with deep experience in editing research papers, grant applications, and texts for scientists whose first language is not English.

Dr Nisha Devi, PhD

Dr Nisha Saroj Devi obtained her PhD in medicinal chemistry and drug design from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, Chennai. Her doctoral work focused on the design of multi-target drugs acting on the inflammatory pathway. She has published four research manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals and has presented her work at international conferences. She began her career as a scientific editor in 2020, and has since edited manuscripts covering a wide range of subject areas, including cell and molecular biology, immunology, microbiology, pharmaceutical chemistry, and computational drug design. She is passionate about science communication and has worked on projects designed to convey complex scientific concepts to a non-science audience.

Dr Richa Joag, PhD

Dr Richa Joag earned her BSc degree in Life Sciences from the University of Mumbai, India, and MSc degree in Zoology from the University of Pune, India. She received her doctoral degree in biology through an international PhD program at the Jagiellonian University in Poland and Exeter University in the UK. Her PhD focused on various aspects of sexual conflict in three arthropod species using the experimental evolution approach and transcriptomics. She has five research publications in peer-reviewed journals. Since 2017, she has been working as a freelance scientific editor and has gained experience in proofreading, editing (copyediting and substantive editing), and formatting scientific manuscripts and dissertations in various areas of life sciences and biomedical science.

Dr Philip Miller, PhD

Philip Miller, PhD, holds an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Florida State University (2008) and a graduate degree in Cancer Biology from the University of Miami (2014), with a specialization in breast cancer. Over the past decade, Dr. Miller has dedicated his professional efforts to breast cancer research, and he currently serves as an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University. His contributions to the field are underscored by his publication record, which includes 13 peer-reviewed manuscripts, including two first-author studies, in the areas of cancer cell line models, cancer animal models, and breast cancer. Additionally, Dr. Miller has demonstrated his commitment to scientific communication through his role as an editor for Oxford Science Editing since 2015, and he has helped prepare over 250 manuscripts for submission and publication.

Dr Natalie Morris, BM BCh, MSc, PhD

Dr Natalie Morris earned a first class degree in Physiological Sciences at Oxford University, and completed her medical studies as a Clinical Scholar at the same university. She worked as a surgeon for 5 years in the National Health Service, and was awarded Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons (England). She has subsequently completed a PhD in clinical epigenetics, with over 50 publications and book chapters. She has edited over 4,000 medical and scientific manuscripts.

Dr Jay Freeman, PhD

Dr Jay Freeman obtained his BSc in Chemistry from York University and his MSc in Advanced Organic Chemistry from the University of East Anglia (UEA). His PhD research on the synthesis of derivatized amino acids and their use in the self-assembly of supramolecular transition-metal structures was conducted at UEA and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. For the next decade, he worked for a Cambridge-based independent drug-discovery company as a medicinal chemist, designing and synthesising kinase and epigenetic inhibitors, and then at University College London on the development of biopolymer-based drug-delivery systems. During this time, he was named as an inventor on a number of patents and co-authored several journal articles.

He has been a full-time Freelance Science Editor and Writer for almost ten years, during which time he has edited around 1500 papers – several hundred of which have been for OSE – on almost every aspect of the chemical sciences. However, he enjoys new challenges and always seizes opportunities to edit in subject areas beyond his main expertise when they arise, a tendency that has seen his portfolio expand into molecular biology, medicine, physics, biomaterials, cell biology, and even the arts and humanities.

While he has extensive experience in formatting, scientific writing, and figure preparation, his speciality is advising scientists for whom English is a second language and facilitating the publication of their research in high-impact journals.

Dr Paz Etcheverry, MS, PhD

Dr Paz Etcheverry obtained her MS in Food Science and Nutrition from North Carolina State University and her PhD in Food Science and Technology from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. When she was a postdoctoral associate at Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, TX), she focused her research efforts on mineral nutrition, especially on iron bioavailability as iron deficiency is the most prevalent micronutrient deficiency in the world. Paz has published in high-impact journals including the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the Journal of Nutrition, and the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, amongst others. She now focuses on teaching undergraduate- and graduate-level nutrition courses and enjoys being a freelance science editor and nutrition/medical writer. Her areas of expertise include food science, nutrition, public health, and biotechnology.

Joyce Fernandez, BEng

Joyce Fernandez is an accomplished academic editor, having edited thousands of academic documents authored by researchers from around the world. She has a Bachelor of Engineering (Chemical Engineering) degree, and she worked for more than 9 years as an academic editor at one of the world’s leading providers of editing and other academic services. There, in addition to independently editing manuscripts, she was also responsible for reviewing the work of freelance and junior editors. Since leaving this firm in 2019, she has been working as a freelance editor with a few different editing companies and specializes in editing documents in physical sciences, particularly materials science. Over the past 14 years, Joyce has built expertise in editing manuscripts written by authors whose native language is not English, especially academics from China, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea.

Dr Philippa Cranwell, MSc, PhD

Philippa gained an MChem in chemistry from the University of Southampton, then a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge. After completing her PhD, she moved to ETH Zurich for postdoctoral studies working with Professor Erick Carreira. She returned to the UK to an academic position at the University of Reading. In 2022 she moved to become head of research at a local SME, working with external customers and preparing marketing material and case-studies. In October 2023 she officially took the plunge to become a freelance writer, supporting OSE with preparation of technical articles. Philippa has published extensively within organic chemistry and chemistry education, written three textbooks, presented work at numerous national and international conferences. Her areas of expertise include organic chemistry, analytical chemistry and biochemistry.

Leona Rodrigues, BSc, ELS

Leona has been working in the academic editing and publishing industry for over 15 years. She has helped over 500 ESL researchers/authors achieve their dream of getting published in reputed academic journals. She has a deep understanding of the expectations and standards of prominent publication houses (Elsevier, Nature, BMJ etc.) in academic research. She is an expert at understanding the needs of ESL authors, specifically, and works on subject matters ranging from biochemistry, genetics, and metabolic disease to machine learning, epidemiology, and nursing.