Overview

This event has been organised by the PDC Representatives' Network as part of a series of live online podcast recordings. In this career insights session, our Rep committee member, Dr Claire Tonry will be joined by guests, Dr Sheila McCartan from Exploristics and Dr Kyle Matchett from Ulster University.

Both guests will be interviewed by Claire, who will ask them questions about their roles, careers, experience of working in and out of academia and tips for postdocs and PhD candidates who are planning their careers etc.

The conversations will be recorded with the intention of converting them to episodes of the PDC's podcast, "The theory of the postdoc evolution".

We advise interested parties to attend the recording live in the event that any technical issues arise that may prevent us from using the recording. Attendees will be able to see our guests and use the chat function to suggest questions.

ALL WELCOME!

This recording is open to anyone who is interested in attending, including those external to Queen's University Belfast, postdocs and PhD candidates!

Our Guests

Dr Sheila McCartan

Dr Kyle Matchett 

Dr Kyle Matchett is a Lecturer in Molecular Immunology and Principal Investigator (PI) at the School of Medicine, Ulster University. Dr Matchett’s research is focused on understanding the molecular pathways that are perturbed by pathogenic drivers in childhood and adult acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and targeting these using both synthetic lethality and rational drug strategies. To do this, his lab utilises a range of genomic, molecular and biochemical approaches, including CRISPR-Cas9 engineering, high-throughput drug screening and advanced transgenic/PDX models. Dr Matchett has been awarded >£1M in funding as PI since joining Ulster in October 2018, including grants from Novartis, Little Princess Trust and Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group. He is a PI on the recent €4M Strand III Higher Education Academy (HEA) North-South Award to the All-Island Cancer Research Institute (AICRI), where he is a Steering Committee member. Furthermore, he has funded grants with collaborators at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), New York, and University College Dublin (UCD). Dr Matchett published 17 papers in the recent REF2021 reporting period, including publication in internationally recognised journals, such as PNAS, Cancer Research, Stem Cells, Oncogene and British Journal of Haematology. His research has been recognised by a number of awards, including both the Faulty and Overall Champion Early Career Research Excellence Prizes by Ulster University (2019), Novartis Fellowship and Medal Award (2017) and the inaugural Prof John Fitzpatrick Prize by the Irish Association for Cancer Research (IACR) (2015). Dr Matchett sits on the Research Advisory Board for a leading UK funder, is a member of the IACR Senior Council and is currently leading the Early Career Research Strategy Group at Ulster University as part of developing the new institutional strategy.

Dr Matchett teaches on both the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at Ulster University, across multiple modules. He is Course Director on the MBiolSci/MBiomedSci degrees, in collaboration with Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, and is Module Coordinator on four modules, including two with a specific research focus. Dr Matchett has a keen interest in leadership and supervision in higher education and has published the results of a School-wide study in this area. He completed his PGCHET in 2014 and was awarded a Fellowship of the Higher Education in 2015.

Prior to joining Ulster University, Dr Matchett completed his PhD and postdoctoral training at Queen's University Belfast, funded by Cancer Research UK, EU FP7 and Leukaemia and Lymphoma NI. His EU FP7 post involved collaboration and extensive travel with partner laboratories in Madrid, Innsbruck, Tel-Aviv, Vienna, Munich and Zurich. During this time, Dr Matchett played a key role in the development of novel EPO receptor antibodies with industrial partners Aldevron (Germany). He also led his own research which resulted in several publications.