Originally from South East London, Maddie moved to Edinburgh for her Biochemistry undergraduate degree. During this time, she competed in IDEC working on making ‘sticky cells’ through surface protein engineering for microbial plastic degradation. This piqued her interest in engineering biology and sustainable biotechnology.

Maddie worked in the Wallace lab for her honours project, looking at p-hydroxystyrene biosynthesis in engineered E. coli as a sustainable alternative to conventional chemical synthesis. She had such a great time she couldn’t leave, so stayed for her EastBio funded PhD looking at bioupcycling keratin rich waste into biosurfactants using S. bombicola (turning hair into shampoo), in collaboration with Holiferm.