CURRENT GROUP MEMBERS


Postdocs


Matthew Nodwell đŸ‡¨đŸ‡Ś

Matt is a BC native from Penticton. Before joining the Britton group, he did his Ph.D. with Dr. Raymond Andersen at UBC, then worked as a Humboldt postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Stephan Sieber at the Technical University of Munich. He is happy to be back home, where he can pursue outdoor activities such as mountain biking, skiing, and camping. 

Narasimha Thota đŸ‡ŽđŸ‡ł

Narasimha ("Simha") was born and raised in Andhra Pradesh, India where he received his M.Sc. in Chemistry from the IIT-Bombay in 2011. He completed his Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Todd L. Lowary, working on the total synthesis of the Campylobacter glycan fragments. Joing the Britton group in 2019, his research involves the synthesis of nucleoside analogues. Outside of the lab, Simha enjoys playing badminton, squash and cricket.

Mahesh Shinde 🇮🇳

Mahesh, a native of Maharashtra, India, completed his M.Sc. in organic chemistry at Ahmednagar College in 2013. He then joined Dr. C.V. Ramana's group at the CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory in Pune as a project assistant. In 2016, he continued his work with the same group as a Ph.D. candidate, focusing on the total synthesis of natural products using gold-catalyzed cycloisomerization reactions. In June 2022, Mahesh joined the Britton lab to work on synthesizing anticancer and antiviral nucleoside analogues. In his free time, he enjoys exploring Vancouver's culture and beauty, playing cricket, and cooking.

Guillermo Caballero Garcia đŸ‡˛đŸ‡˝

Guillermo (nickname Memo) was born and raised in central Mexico. He studied chemistry at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico, graduating in 2014. He then taught chemistry at the high school level (at the same high school he attended) for one year before starting his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge. During his Ph.D., in Jonathan Goodman's group, he worked on asymmetric organocatalysis using chiral phosphoric acids and did computational chemistry to explain enantioselectivity outcomes. Memo joined the Britton group in 2021 and he's currently working on the total synthesis of complex molecules. When he is not doing science you can find him at the Jackalopes reading sci-fi novels while enjoying a beer with nice metal music.


Graduate Students


Dimitrios Panagopolous đŸ‡ŹđŸ‡ˇ

Dimitri was born and raised in Athens, Greece, where he received his B.Sc. in Chemistry in 2012 from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He then moved to Vancouver, where he pursued an MSc in Chemistry in the lab of Dr Marco Ciufolini. Following that, he started his Ph.D. degree at SFU in the Britton lab in Fall 2016, where he is pursuing the formal synthesis of eribulin. You might see him some times walking around town with a camera on his hand (both film and digital). 

Darryl Wilson đŸ‡¨đŸ‡Ś

Darryl was born and raised in Abbotsford, BC. In 2017 Darryl received his B.Sc. in chemistry from the University of the Fraser Valley, working with Drs. Noham Weinberg and Cory Beshara where he was able to explore both synthetic and computational chemistry. He joined the Britton and Linington groups at SFU to combine data mining and synthetic chemistry for the development of novel natural product-like compounds. Outside of class his hobbies include: curling (yes the sport!), fountain pens, fantasy novels, and anything science fiction.


Garrett Muir đŸ‡¨đŸ‡Ś

Garrett was born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He attended university at Mount Allison University where he completed his B.Sc. (Hons) in chemistry under Dr. Khashayar Ghandi. He then started his Ph.D. at SFU in the fall of 2017 in the Britton lab, where he is studying the synthesis of nucleoside analogues and the total synthesis of Phormidolide A. Apart from the lab, he enjoys cooking, reading, and visiting the Vancouver Aquarium along with snowboarding, hiking, and kayaking when he gets outside. 

Cohan Huxley đŸ‡ŚđŸ‡ş

Cohan completed his Bachelors of Biomolecular Sci. (Hons) at Griffith University in 2018 with Queensland Health Forensic and Scientific Services under Dr. Urs Wermuth and Dr. Mark Coster. After completing his degree Cohan worked with Griffith University in technical support and nature products research under Dr. Rohan Davis before starting with the Britton Lab in late 2019. Cohan enjoys listening to music and podcasts and playing guitar.