Dr. Theodora (Thea) Stewart is the Associate Director Business Development and Innovation for analytical core research facilities within the Research Management & Innovation Directorate (RMID) at King’s College London. Thea graduated with a degree in Chemistry from Wellesley College (USA) in 2008 and moved onto ETHZ (Zürich, Switzerland), completing her MSc in Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics (2010) and Ph.D. in Environmental Science (2014) studying the influence of metal speciation on the bioavailability and toxicity of lead (Pb) in aquatic organisms, work for which she obtained the ETH Silver Medal. She continued her postdoctoral research in the Department of Environmental Toxicology at Eawag (Dübendorf, Switzerland), after which she moved to King’s College London supported by a research fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation in collaboration with the Diamond Light Source (DLS). After working in the Department of Nutrition at KCL, Thea was hired as lead scientist and manager of the newly Wellcome funded London Metallomics Facility (LMF) and helped build and transition the LMF to a successful and growing core facility based at KCL, providing cutting edge technology and expertise to underpin the ever-expanding applications of elemental analyses in the exciting new field of metallomics.

Her personal scientific interests lie at the interface of biology, chemistry, and physics, with a specific focus on supporting the development of correlative workflows and scientific platforms to provide integrated and comprehensive data sets required for answering complex scientific questions in all fields of research and translational applications. Taking this 'analytical omics' based approach, as Business Development Manager for core research facilities, she engages the academic community along with key industrial partners and commercial stakeholders to support the delivery of cutting-edge technology and services for all users of analytical services at King's, ultimately fostering a paradigm shift in how science is done more efficiently and effectively.