Meet our Team: Natalie Maclean

In this month’s edition of CMAC’s "Meet Our Team" series, we are excited to spotlight Natalie Maclean, a Teaching Fellow at CMAC who plays a pivotal role in shaping the future of pharmaceutical sciences.

Before joining CMAC in 2018, Natalie completed her undergraduate degree in Pure and Applied Chemistry at the University of Strathclyde. As part of the Year in Industry programme, she spent a year at Mylan (now Viatris) in Kent, where she discovered her passion for pharmaceutical science and enjoyed working in a structured GMP environment. Following a six-month extension at Mylan, she returned to Strathclyde for a PhD at the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences (SIPBS) and CMAC, co-supervised by AstraZeneca. She said:

“The industrial guidance and support I received during my PhD were invaluable. Although I originally planned to return to industry, after my PhD I decided to remain at CMAC as a post doc and continue my research in the area of drug product performance”.

Natalie went on to complete a postdoc at CMAC in 2022, where she discovered her passion for supporting PhD students. This inspired her to apply for her current role as a Teaching Fellow in the Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) at CMAC, where she is excited to draw on her experience in both industry and academia to support the next generation of pharmaceutical scientists.

In her current role as a Teaching Fellow, Natalie supports training and teaching within CMAC, particularly by contributing to the training curriculum for the new EPSRC-funded Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber-Physical Systems for Medicine Manufacturing (CEDAR). Her main responsibilities include ensuring that the training curriculum aligns with industry needs and the latest government and industrial recommendations for skills requirements in the pharmaceutical sector, as well as helping to design and deliver training and teaching for PhD and MSc courses as needed.

Since starting her new role, Natalie’s day-to-day activities have changed. While her previous responsibilities as a postdoc involved conducting research, collecting and analysing data, and preparing papers and presentations, her new role focuses on helping the CEDAR team plan and organise training for the new PhD students who will be joining our Centre for Doctoral Training next month. Natalie aims to support CMAC students by equipping them with the skills and expertise needed to succeed in their PhD journey and emerge as future leaders in academia, industry, and beyond.

She describes her proudest professional moment as publishing her first paper, feeling excited to see all the hard work and time spent in the lab culminate in a publication. When asked about her favourite part of working at CMAC, she said:

"My favourite part of working at CMAC is the people and the atmosphere. I’ve met so many kind and interesting individuals, both here at CMAC and from other institutes and companies through networking events and conferences."

In her spare time, Natalie enjoys reading, playing Dungeons and Dragons with her friends, grabbing brunch at Singl-end, and going out for coffee. Originally from Aberdeen, she has a little ginger cat named Angus, though his friends call him Gus.