Who am I?

I’m Anna and I’ve spent the last 14 years developing, proving and scaling science and technology across sectors. Having spent so much time at a Catapult centre, I kept seeing the same patterns of founders being overwhelmed and being too at arms length to truly help. So I decided to go solo and embed more closely with startups, turning enthusiasm and great ideas into long term, de-risked, funded plans.

While I’m very comfortable working across technical, grant writing and innovation strategy, I’m a scientist at heart. I thrive off problem solving, multidisciplinary collaboration, connecting the dots, and failing fast to innovate faster. I particularly enjoy formulating polymers for lower environmental impact, biocompatibility, or a combination of the two!

Woman speaking at a conference podium with a laptop, wearing a badge, and gesturing with her hand, with a blue and white conference banner in the background.

Led 24 technical projects

Teams up to 15 staff, ranging from fresh graduates to highly experienced researchers

£2.7M in grants & commercial contracts since 2023

Success rates: 25% grant funding (industry average 20%)

50% commercial contracts

Work package lead for a €6M European consortium

€0.5M direct budget

Polymer formulation

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Materials for AM

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Biocompatible materials

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Functional coatings

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Ink formulation

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Design of Experiments

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Rheology

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Microscopy

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Printed electronics

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Polymer formulation - Materials for AM - Biocompatible materials - Functional coatings - Ink formulation - Design of Experiments - Rheology - Microscopy - Printed electronics -


What’s it like to work with me?

Anna helped us take our gut model from proof of concept to repeatable in-house manufacturing. She selected materials with biocompatibility in mind and identified a manufacturing method that balanced reproducibility, scale and cost: critical for an early stage company. She worked directly with our team to build capability and knowledge, and her contribution ultimately fed into a patent application.
— Peter Chater, CEO, Aelius Biotech
Working with Anna has been a real pleasure. She excelled at bringing together people, industry partners, and outstanding academic teams across Europe. Throughout the proposal process, she provided invaluable support not only in coordinating the consortium but also in the scientific and technical drafting, partner search, and overall project development. Her professionalism, creativity, and commitment made a genuine difference.
— Ana Ferreira-Duarte, Bioengineering Group Lead & NUCoRE Director, Newcastle University
Anna’s deep knowledge and wide experience really helped unlock some materials development challenges we had. She spent time with the team to understand our needs and then worked with us to develop practical solutions that we could deploy immediately.
— Rachel Eggington, COO, Q5D Technology
Anna took the time to understand our project and its wider context before identifying the most appropriate funding routes from charitable funders. She aligned our proposal language with the funder’s mission, gathered supporting evidence, and drafted a strong application that moved our submission timeline forward significantly. Her strategic thinking and quality of work gave us real confidence.
— Marlana Malerich, Co-founder & CDO, Rooted Research Collective