The Oakley Group, 2026

The Oakley Group, 2026

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Meagan Oakley

Group Leader & Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw Research Fellow

  • Previously an NSERC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The University of Manchester
  • Postdocs at the University of Minnesota & University of Manitoba
  • PhD at the University of Alberta
  • Follow @meaganoakley on Bluesky

PhD Students

Lana Francis

PhD student

  • PhD co-supervised with Michael Baker

  • Lana completed her MChem at Cardiff University with a placement year abroad at the University of Florida. Both projects focused on benchmarking electronic structure theory methods. Her PhD project focuses on modelling X-ray spectra of actinides.

Fathima Thanha Thazhe Namboorikandy

PhD student

  • PhD co-supervised with David Mills

  • Fathima completed her Masters in Chemistry at the National Institute of Technology, Calicut, Kerala, India. Her master’s project focused on electronic structure studies of beryllium-group 13 heterobimetallic dimetallocenes. Her PhD project focuses on defining the electronic structures of (hetero)metallocene anions-He-MAn.

Postdoctoral Researchers

Nicolaj Kofod

Postdoctoral Researcher

  • Independent PDRA at UoM since 2023
  • PhD in Chemistry, University of Copenhagen, 2023
  • While not ~technically~ part of the Oakley Group, Nicolaj is working closely with Meagan on simulating optical spectra of lanthanides and uranyl. His research interests contains all things light and f-block elements. Currently, he is working on uranyl speciation for nuclear remediation and nuclear waste management.

MChem Students

Ffion Jones

MChem student

  • Current MChem student, with a keen interest in physical and computational chemistry

  • Ffion’s research is focused on extended environment effects on simulating X-ray spectra of actinide dioxide compounds

MSc Students

Ieuan Blackwell

MSc student

  • Having grown up in Lancaster, Ieuan completed his BA (Hons) in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge before coming to Manchester to pursue his MSc. His interests include DFT and f-block chemistry.

Pippin

Post-dog

  • PhD (pretty happy dog)
  • Pippin trained with Dr. Oakley for 4 years and gained expertise in sit, speak, and playing dead.
  • Proficient in pip

Group Alumni

Vedaang Parammal (Undergraduate, 2024)

Kholil Rahman (Postgraduate, 2025)

Lin Abhari (MChem, 2025)