Aled completed his undergraduate degree in Microbiology (Cardiff University) in 2009 which included an industrial placement year with Pfizer’s Bioprocess Development Group at their European research headquarters. Aled then went onto complete a PhD in Microbiology in Prof. Rose Cooper’s lab (University of Wales Institute, Cardiff) in 2013, looking at the inhibition of Pseudomonas aeruginosa by manuka honey. During this period he became acquainted with various members of the ECS committee whilst attending both ECS and SfAM events. Aled went on to complete a Post-Doc in Dr. Steve Diggle’s lab in 2015, looking at the evolution of biofilms and their 3D-spatial structure before returning to Cardiff. He's currently looking into the effects of manuka honey on Cystic Fibrosis pathogens in Dr. Rowena Jenkins’ lab. Aled joined the ECS committee September 2014 as an events officer and became ECS Chair following the conclusion of the 2016 ECS Research Conference.

Jennie joined the ECS committee a year ago as the undergraduate representative while studying for her Microbiology degree at the University of Nottingham. She is currently studying for an MSc in Science Communication at the University of West England, Bristol and has recently become the Publications Officer for the ECS committee. While her interests are still firmly within microbiology, Jennie has begun to explore the theory and practice behind engaging audiences in public spaces such as science festivals and museums. Learning how to produce successful scientific radio and TV programmes similar to ‘Planet Earth’ is also a key part of her masters. During our recent events, Jennie has enjoyed meeting new people and learning about their research, Tweeting about the talks and posters and being able to report on the events in the ECS section of the society’s magazine ‘Microbiologist’ TWITTER : @jenniefrench95

James is currently a Post doc at the University of Warwick, focusing on engineering environmental bacteria for the utilisation of waste plant material, with an aim to produce high value products. As a PhD student at the University of Nottingham, his research centred on trying to integrate high value plant chemical biosynthetic pathways into carotenogenic members of the Enterobacteriaceae. His research interests include industrial biotechnology and synthetic biology. James joins the ECS after attending several of their events and observing how the group makes such a difference to the microbiology community. TWITTER: @JamesJW90

Lucky completed her undergraduate degree in Medical Biochemistry at Kingston University in 2014, where her passion for microbiology originated through summer research internships and a research scholarship funded by the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC). A recurring factor in all of her research was antimicrobial resistance including next generation sequencing techniques to identify antimicrobial resistance within the nasopharyngeal niche, pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm formation and the bacterial profiling of mastitic cows. Lucky progressed onto a PhD at Kingston University, where she is characterising the emergence of antimicrobial resistance through mutation mapping of the resistome. During her PhD Lucky has attended many ECS and SfAM conferences, as well as events such as Parliamentary Links Day. Lucky presented her research at the ECS Research Symposium in 2016, and was given the opportunity to present at the SfAM Antimicrobial Resistance Meeting. Lucky was recently awarded the SfAM presidency fund to present at the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) conference in New Orleans. TWITTER : @LuckyCullen

Binod Rayamajhee received his MSc in Medical Microbiology from Tribhuvan University in 2016. He taught biology courses for A level of Kathmandu University High School in Dhulikhel, Kavre, Nepal and has worked as research intern in Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Diseases Hospital, Teku, Kathmandu. He has been involved in organization of several national, and international conferences and workshops and has contributed more than a dozen of health-related articles in national daily newspapers of Nepal. His research interest includes, antimicrobial resistance, viral pathogenesis such as HIV/AIDS, host defence mechanism, drug discovery, and molecular diagnostics of infectious diseases. Currently, he works as a research faculty of infectious diseases at the Kathmandu Research Institute for Biological Sciences, a non-governmental non-for-profit organization dedicated to promote advanced health researches in Nepal. He is also involved as teaching faculty at National College, where he teaches research methodology and disease diagnosis courses to the MSc and BSc students of Tribhuvan University. Binod is planning for his doctoral degree in antimicrobial resistance in near future.

Alli completed her undergraduate degree in Marine Science before carrying out a MRes studying freshwater crayfish and a PhD studying the interaction between microbes and freshwater sponges. She studied at Ulster University, Northern Ireland. Alli works as a lab technician at the Northern Regional College, Coleraine, Northern Ireland and spends her weekends working for the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Alli is a regular contributor to the Society for Applied Microbiology's blog and is keen to take on new writing ventures.

A current undergraduate student at Edinburgh Napier University, Hannah is studying Microbiology and Biotechnology. After attending talks on the microbiome and workshops at the ASCUS Lab during the Edinburgh Science Festival in 2015, she decided to change her career from early years education to Microbiology. During the summer of 2017, Hannah worked in the laboratory of Dr. Rosa De Llanos, learning about and culturing yeast as well as working with Listeria monocytogenes in the model organism Galleria mellonella. She is interested in a wide range of Microbiology topics from the seeding of the human gut microbiome to microbial degradation of plastics and is looking forward to completing her degree and working in the field of Microbiology.

Jake joined the ECS committee in 2017 as the undergraduate representative, after attending the ECS Research Symposium and annual conference, observing the positive environment the Society creates for early career researchers. He recently completed his undergraduate degree in Human Nutrition at Kingston University, which included multiple summer internships in the microbiology laboratories. He also undertook a placement year at the Jodrell laboratory of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, working on plant-microbe interactions through various molecular methods. Jake is about to begin a PhD at Royal Holloway (University of London) under the supervision of Professor Paul Fraser, in plant and microbial molecular biology. Twitter: @_JakeBell1

Phil completed his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Sciences (Cardiff Metropolitan University) in 2013. Phil then moved on to work for the NHS pathology department specializing in microbiology. During his time there Phil has developed an interest in the isolation, identification and treatment of pathogenic bacteria and has seen the prevalence of antimicrobial resistant bacteria. Phil has since left the NHS employ due to his interest in the development of new antibacterial agents. Phil is currently completing his PhD in Medical Microbiology with Dr. Rowena Jenkins and in conjunction with industry partner Neem Biotech Ltd. The project aims to determine the effects of a novel new bacterial agent against Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Phil joined the ECS committee in January 2018 and hopes to raise the awareness of SfAM across all sectors that employ microbiologists and how they can assist people who are new to the field. TWITTER: @Micro_phil

Robert is currently a PhD student at the University of Warwick in his hometown of Coventry, trying to find new bacterial hosts for metabolic engineering on the degradation of lignin. Before this, he completed his undergraduate masters in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry (University of Oxford) whilst being fortunate enough to be enrolled on the Erasmus program to complete his final year research in Marburg, Germany, trying to elucidate the formation of [4Fe-4S] clusters in the mitochondrion. Having worked with SfAM for 3 months as part of an internship in the first year of his PhD, Robert was determined to get back involved with the organisation, and so applied to be a member of the ECS committee. He is particularly interested in science communication and media, and hopes to be able to expand these skills in the near future. TWITTER : @ScienceMillar

Caleb recently completed his undergraduate degree in Medical Biochemistry at Kingston University and is about to begin a PhD at the University of Nottingham, in the field of Agriculture and Food Security. He will be selecting a title focused on Antimicrobial Resistance. Caleb has been passionate about AMR since first hearing about it while volunteering in a veterinary practice as a teenager. The importance of this issue was stressed to him and dictated his choices from that point on. He completed a summer internship assessing the antimicrobial properties of a novel coper containing fabric and in his final year dissertation project; optimising an on-site rapid diagnostic for Staphylococcus aureus in the Kingston microbiology lab. This confirmed his passion for microbiology and research. Whilst completing his undergraduate degree, Caleb enjoyed organising talks and events with fellow students. He hopes to continue this as part of the ECS committee, while continuing the effort to welcome new and current members to engage with ECS events. Twitter: @CalJMarsh

Temilola completed his undergraduate degree in Marine Biology with an ecotoxicology specialisation at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. Having worked as a water quality analyst for a few years, he went on to earn an MSc in Environmental Monitoring and Analysis from Aberystwyth University. He is currently undertaking his PhD with the Freshwater Biology Research Group at Ulster University, studying the propensity of filter feeding freshwater invertebrates to facilitate the transmission of antimicrobial resistance genes in Enterococcus faecalis. Twitter: @temibambi

Lucas completed his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at the University of Sheffield in 2015, during which he worked on a number of different microbiology-focused research projects. After graduating, he worked as a research technician in a virology lab at UCL. Lucas is now undertaking his PhD at the University of Birmingham where he is looking at the regulation of infection and biofilm formation in Vibrio cholerae. During the first year of his PhD, he worked at SfAM for 3 months as a policy intern and was keen to continue supporting the work of the society thereafter.