Our Team

Sarah oversees editorial coverage and strategy. She has two decades’ experience as a journalist and editor and was named Association of British Science Writers Editor of the Year in 2022 for her work at Research Professional News. She is also a past winner of the PPA Writer of the Year Award. She joined RPN in 2017 from UBM, where she edited Building, one of the UK’s longest-running specialist media titles, and she has appeared as a commentator for BBC, ITV and other media. She has an MA in English from the University of Cambridge and is a trustee of education charity The Talent Foundry.

John was formerly politics and policy reporter, as well as deputy news editor, at Times Higher Education. There, he built a specialism focusing on the economic role of universities and their research in cities and regions around the world, from Sheffield, to Germany’s Ruhr, to Pittsburgh. Before that, he was a reporter at the Cambridge News. He has a PhD in English literature from the University of Leeds.

Craig assists the Editor and Deputy Editor in directing and shaping Research Europe’s news coverage. He also writes news and features. Before joining *Research, he edited academic healthcare journals and was a copy editor across the Nature Reviews life science journals at Nature Publishing Group. He has a degree in biochemistry from the University of Nottingham.

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Chris covers higher education policy and universities, and regularly writes the *HE 8am Playbook. He is an award-winning education journalist who spent six years at Times Higher Education, three as a reporter and three as digital editor. He is a regular contributor to the Times Educational Supplement, and has been widely published in the education press. His work for Research Professional News has been covered by newspapers including The Times, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Independent, as well as by broadcasters including the BBC and ITV.

John has been comment editor since 2012 and is the author of two books: People Will Talk: the surprising science of reputation; and In the Beat of a Heart: life, energy and the unity of nature. He has written news, features and reviews for Science, Scientific American, New Scientist, Slate, the FT and the London Review of Books, and worked for six years at Nature. He has a PhD in zoology from the University of Cambridge.

Martin writes the Ivory Tower and Third Degree columns, and is a contributor to our 8am Playbook. His commentaries on higher education have appeared in The Guardian, The New European and Times Higher Education. He is an award wining filmmaker and writer, and is director of the Institute for Creative Enterprise at Edge Hill University in Liverpool.

Harriet is a comment editor at Research Professional News, commissioning and writing news and analysis on UK higher education policy. She was previously deputy books and features editor at The Times Higher Education Supplement, and has freelanced for 15 years for The Guardian’s education section. She has a degree in history from Balliol College, University of Oxford, and a journalism diploma from City University London, where she is also a visiting lecturer.

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Robin joined Research Professional News in 2019 and is currently Lead Reporter and Assistant Editor, focusing on UK news. From August 2023 he has taken up the role of Features Editor as a maternity cover. His reporting has led to an award from the Association of British Science Writers, a shortlisting in the British Journalism Awards and an appearance on BBC radio. Robin has also written for The Guardian, The Independent and Cosmos Magazine and has degrees in mathematics and philosophy of science.

Fiona manages features across Research Professional News, Research Europe and Research Fortnight. She also covers news on universities, higher education policy and research. She joined in 2018 from New Civil Engineer, an award-winning specialist magazine, where she wrote news and features. She has previously written for the BBC and several newspapers and magazines. Fiona trained for her NCTJ with top-ranking journalism school News Associates.

James is responsible for Funding Insight, which covers UK and international funding calls, and career and grants advice. He also reports on French news for Research Europe. Previously, James worked as a biopharma executive-search consultant in Paris before becoming science editor for BioNews, a fertility and genetics newsletter. He has a BSc in pharmacology and a MA in science journalism. He is a regular contributor to Critical Muslim, the Muslim Institute’s quarterly publication.

Sophie is a senior journalist covering both UK and European research policy. After receiving her NCTJ qualification at the Press Association, she worked on the agency’s picture desk before moving into the Higher Education sector, reporting on international education. She holds a BA in Spanish and Portuguese Studies from Queen’s University Belfast.

Frances is a UK and EU reporter specialising in research community. Before joining *Research, Frances was the lead reporter at Captive Insurance Times, a niche publication covering the global captive markets. She started her journalism career at another specialty publication, Batteries International. Frances has a BSc in Marketing and Management from the University of Sussex.

Linda is the founding editor of Research Africa. She is a widely published journalist and columnist specialising in science, technology, health and development stories with a focus on Africa. She holds a master’s degree in science communication from Imperial College, London.

Sibusiso Biyela is a freelance science journalist and science communicator. He specialises in South African science stories where he uses graphics, data journalism and African languages to make science more accessible for audiences. He is a Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans awardee for 2024.

Jenny Sinclair is a Melbourne-based journalist. Formerly a technology reporter for The Age newspaper, she now writes across a range of fields including public policy, the arts and social issues. Her work has appeared in The Age, the Australian, Meanjin, Griffith Review, Island, on ABC radio and in numerous magazines and anthologies. She is the author of two non-fiction books (the historical biography A Walking Shadow and the city-biography Much Ado About Melbourne) and holds a doctoral degree from the University of Melbourne’s department of culture and communication. She was the winner of the 2019 Nature Conservancy Nature Writing essay prize. She has taught creative writing at Melbourne University and worked as an advisor to public creative arts programs.

Krijn Soeteman is a Dutch science and technology journalist. He majored in the history of art and architecture. After his studies he started as a music video producer. This led to producing a Museum Night at the NEMO Science Museum, which eventually led to science journalism.

Hristio is a Berlin based science and health journalist with a focus on data-driven and investigative reporting. He has worked as reporter for the non-profit newsroom Correctiv and as a freelance medical and science journalist for NDR, “Stern”, “Der Spiegel” and “Nature”. He develops www.followthegrant.org, a tool for investigating conflicts of interest. Hristio has master’s degrees in biology from the TU Dresden and journalism from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He graduated from the German National Academic Foundation’s “Science and Foreign Journalism” program in 2011, was with the “Washington Post” as an Arthur F. Burns Fellow in 2012 and was voted the number three science journalist in Germany by “Medium Magazin” in 2016.

Fabio is a science journalist based in Milan, where since 2002 he directs the Agency Zoe of science journalism. Former correspondent of The BMJ, he has been contributing to many Italian and International media, mostly on medicine and healthcare. In 2016-17 he was Research Fellow of the Knight Science Journalism Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Soon after he funded, and currently directs, the Center for Ethics in Science and Journalism, doing research and teaching on science journalism.

Conor Purcell is a Dublin-based science and research journalist whose work has appeared in publications including Nature, Science, Scientific American, New Scientist and MIT’s Undark. With a PhD in climate science, Conor’s writing typically focusses on climate and environmental topics, but he also writes about physics, mathematics and developments in health. Conor was the 2019 Journalist in Residence at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam, Germany, and was awarded the 2021-22 European Meteorological Society’s Journalist of the Year. He is also former secretary of the Irish Science & Technology Journalists Association.

Craig runs the subs desk at *Research. He is a production journalist with more than ten years’ experience editing, writing and commissioning content for many print and digital publications. Craig has covered several compelling subjects throughout his career – including nursing, technology and the advertising industry – and has a BA in politics, philosophy and economics from the Open University.

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Grace studied Design & Communication at Central St Martins before joining *Research as an Editorial Researcher. She later joined the Production team, where she now works to make sure the content created by our journalists and researchers gets delivered safely to our readers. Grace puts her artistic skills to good use by producing in-house material, online artwork and illustrations as well as sourcing images for the news team.

Isaac is a journalist and production editor, covering UK and EU research and higher education policy. Previously, he reported for a local news organisation and worked with a tech-based journalism start-up as a democracy reporter. He received his NCTJ qualification at the Press Association, and holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Warwick.