Rokos Postdoctoral Research Associates

Each year outstanding researchers holding recognised postdoctoral positions at the University of Cambridge are granted PDRA status at Queens’ College. The Rokos Postdoctoral Research Associates are members of the SCR, given rights to dine at High Table and granted a personal research allowance. This programme allows them to flourish and build relationships in an outstanding academic community.

Our current Rokos PDRAs are:

	Name	Research interests
	Dr Isaac Akanho
	Dr Adeleke Bankole
	Dr Javier Aguilera-Lizarrage
	Dr Rami Alghamri
	Dr Matthew Archer
	Dr Jack Atkinson
	Dr Francisco Pinto Berkemeier	Francisco is a mathematician specialising in modelling the complex dynamics of DNA replication in human cells. His research explores how the coordination between origin firing and replication fork progression influences the replication process. By developing detailed kinetic models, he aims to uncover how disruptions in this coordination lead to replication stress, a precursor to genomic instability and cancer. His work helps providing important insights into the cellular mechanisms driving disease. Since joining Queens' College in 2023, Francisco has also been actively involved in undergraduate teaching through supervisions, guiding students in mathematical and biological topics.
	Dr Luc Bulten
	Dr Tianzhang Cai
	Dr Laura Cimoli
	Dr Sara de Felice
	Dr Leif-Thore Deck
	Dr Malte Dewies
	Dr Sarah Down	Sarah's work brings together academic research with practical legal application. Sarah holds the position of Senior Legal Researcher for Ngāi Tahu, a large Māori tribe in the South Island of New Zealand, where she specialises in freshwater rights. Her current research is focused on advising Ngāi Tahu on court action seeking declarations of their continued rangatiratanga (authority / self-determination) over freshwater. This claim is based on important new jurisprudence in New Zealand that recognises tikanga (Māori customary law) as part of New Zealand law and recognisable by the courts. Her work has been cited by the Law Commission in its influential report on tikanga, He Poutama, and she regularly comments and publishes on key legal developments in Māori rights.
	Dr James Emberton
	Ms Kerstin Enright
	Dr Surbhi Goel
	Dr Lydia Hickman
	Dr Matthew Hines
	Dr Joris Hoste
	Dr Konstantinos Ioannidis	I am a behavioural and experimental economist and a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Economics. I am part of the LIPNE lab and we study how computational complexity affects decision making and how markets can help individuals solve complex problems. I am also interested in honest and dishonest communication, and habit formation. I often collaborate with the Cambridge Cybercrime Centre at the Computer Department. Ever since I joined Queens’ in 2024, I am expanding my academic curiosity meeting amazing colleagues from different fields.
	Dr Omar Jamil
	Dr Micha Kaiser
	Dr Catherine Klesner
	Dr Marissa Knoll
	Dr Dimitri Konen
	Dr Paul Lohmann	I joined Queens' in 2022. My research aims to increase individual and societal welfare in the face of climate change by applying behavioural insights to pressing public policy challenges.
	Dr Tom Meltzer
	Dr Henry Moss
	Dr Joana Nascimento	Joana joined Queens' in 2022. As a social anthropologist, Joana's research explores ethnographically the social, cultural and political-economic complexities of contemporary work and livelihood strategies, focusing on people’s everyday lived experiences and their relation to particular pasts and imagined futures. Her most recent research project involved 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, and focused on the work, workers and workplaces involved in the production of Harris Tweed – a renowned woollen textile that has been trademark-protected since 1910 and can only be produced in these islands, but is exported to over 50 countries around the world. Joana is currently working on a book manuscript based on this research, focusing on industry workers’ lived experiences and contributing to anthropological debates on work and labour, cultural production, inclusive belonging and place-making in contemporary capitalism.
	Dr Peter Ochieng	Peter joined Queens' in 2022. He conducts research in natural language processing, biomedical ontologies and AI. He is keen to leverage work in these areas to help the development of more apps in human and veterinary medicine and agritech that could benefit people living in Africa. His recent research experimented with applying unsupervised learning techniques to develop conversational machine learning tools. He did this in the context of an app to help rural farmers diagnose disease in flocks of poultry, where the app needed to be able to handle both general questions and more specific ones. There is also the need to compress the very large AI models used in apps so that they can easily be used on mobile phones over mobile internet.
	Dr Roly Perera
	Dr Amy Pike
	Dr Tamsin A. Spelman	I joined Queens' in 2019. My research uses mathematical and computational techniques to address problems in microscale systems. I have an ongoing project modelling blood flow in the human eye, aiming to understand the observed patterns of bleeding after trauma. My primary research in the Sainsbury Laboratory is studying how nucleus morphology impacts growth within the root hair cell of a plant, specifically Arabidopsis.
	Dr Francesca van Tartwijk
	Dr Joseph Wallwork
	Dr Marion Weinzierl
	Dr Atiyeh Yeganloo