James Skardon Duncan

James Skardon-Duncan has a diverse work experience in the field of biochemistry. From 2012 to 2015 they worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew as a Natural Products Chemist, where they isolated and characterized novel compounds from plant material and conducted biological assays to assess activity. During this time, they also worked with the EPSRC on the crystallization and DSC of spin-transition conductors. From 2014 to 2015, they were the Chief Scientific Officer at Gateway Organics Ltd., where they designed novel small-footprint photobioreactors for the production of high value algal oils. From 2015 to 2019, they worked at Charles River Laboratories as a Plant Metabolism Chemist, participating in glasshouse and outdoor studies to investigate the uptake, translocation and metabolism of radiolabeled test items in a variety of plant species. From 2020 to 2022, they worked at ScotBio as a Process Development Scientist, scaling production of their core product, phycocyanin, up to commercial volumes of several tonnes of product per year. James currently works at Brilliant Planet as a Biochemical Engineer, unlocking the power of algae as an affordable method of permanently and quantifiably sequestering carbon at the gigaton scale.

James Skardon-Duncan has a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from the University of Glasgow (2015-2019). James also holds a Master of Science (MSc) in Neuroscience from King's College London (2014-2015) and a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Chemistry from the University of Surrey (2010-2014). In addition, they have obtained a number of certifications from various institutions, including Design of Experiments from First Polymer Training Skillnet (February 2021), COSHH Awareness, Electrical Safety Awareness, Fire Safety Awareness, Food Safety and Hygiene for Manufacturing, Manual Handling Awareness, and Working at Height Awareness from HSQE LIMITED (June 2020), ACS Reviewer Lab from the American Chemical Society (May 2019), Oxygen Therapy First Aid from Stewart First Aid Training Ltd (January 2017), and Emergency First Aid at Work from Stewart First Aid Training Ltd (November 2015).