I'm a biologist based at the University of Bristol. I research bacterial evolution, particularly the genetics of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). For more information on my research group and my academic work, see shawlab.uk.

Brief academic biography. I did my PhD in computational biology at UCL (2018). After that, I worked as a postdoc in the Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford (2018-2020) before becoming a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Biology (2021-2025). During that fellowship I also spent time at research groups in Durham and Basel. I was a College for Life Sciences Fellow at the Instituted for Advanced Study in Berlin in autumn/winter 2025 before starting at Bristol in early 2026.

Alongside my academic research, I write about science. My book on the history of antibiotics and the rise of antibiotic resistance, Dangerous Miracle (2025), was a Sunday Times Book of the Year.

(Photo credit: Katherine Hannaford.)