Fabienne joined Warwick in 2017 to complete her MSc in Molecular Analytical Sciences, and subsequently joined the computational chemistry department to start her PhD in 2018. Prior to this she graduated from the University of Southampton in 2010 where she gained a BA in Modern Languages, where upon completion she worked as an account manager for American Express in Brighton. Wanting to pursue her love of science Fabienne opted to retrain and in 2017 graduated with a BSc in Natural Sciences at the Open University, where she was also the recipient of the Haynes Prize.

The focus of Fabienne's project is to understand by what mechanism certain synthetic polymers are able to inhibit the recrystallisation of ice during the freeze/thaw cycles of cryobiologically stored samples. By using all-atomistic molecular dynamics as well as enhanced sampling techniques such as Metadynamics, she hopes to elucidate a structure-function relationship that maps onto the ice recrystallisation inhibition (IRI) activity for a range of bio-polymers. This in turn may inform the rational design for safer and more cost-effective, next-generation cryoprotectants with applications spanning from food science to medicine. She is supervised by Dr. Sosso with experimental collaborations at Durham University (Dr. Knight) as well as within Warwick University (Prof. Gibson).