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Suzannah Williams

Suzannah Williams

Awards

2010 Society for Reproduction and Fertility (SRF) New Investigator of the Year

Current Group Members:

  • Briet Bjarkadottir (DPhil student)
  • Tomi Adeniran (DPhil student)
  • Ruth Appeltant (Postdoctoral Fellow)
  • Aleona Swegen (Postdoctoral Fellow)

Previous Group Members:

  • Eleni Papadopoulou (DPhil student completed 2021)
  • Lindsay Baxter (Wellcome Trust Clinical Fellowship)
  • Xi Wei (DPhil student completed 2019)
  • Charlotte Walker (DPhil student completed 2019)
  • Arwa Alageel (DPhil student completed 2019)
  • Sairah Sheikh (DPhil student completed 2018)
  • Belinda Lo (DPhil student completed 2018)
  • Heidy Kaune (DPhil student completed 2015)
  • Panayiota Ploutarchou (DPhil student completed 2015)
  • Patrica Grasa Molina (Postdoctoral Fellow)
  • Anna Deleva (Research Associate)
  • Alice Christensen (Medical Student) 
  • 28 MSc student projects (2010-2021)
  • 21 FHS/Undergraduate student projects (2008-2021)
  • SRF vacation, ERASMUS, SSM and FY2 projects

Collaborators:

  • Prof. Roser Vento-Tormo, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK
  • Dr. Rachel Cox (Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, USA) and Prof. Jo Poulton, NDWRH
  • Prof. Thomas Hildebrandt, Dr. Frank Göritz, Adj. Prof. Robert Hermes, Dr. Susanne Holtze (Leibniz-IZW, Germany), Prof. Cesare Galli (Avantea srl, Italy)
  • Prof. Norah Spears (University of Edinburgh)
  • Dr. Mark Fenwick (University of Sheffield, UK
  • Prof. Dagan Wells, NDWRH

Academic Groups and Editorial Boards

2019-present 

Editorial Board Member Journal Reproduction and Fertility; Lay Editor 

2010-2013, 2019-present

Member of Council Society for Reproduction and Fertility;

2021-present

Chair Public Engagement and Membership Committee, Society for Reproduction and Fertility 

Opportunities to work with us

We are always keen to hear from people interested in working (Postdocs) or studying with us (e.g., DPhil, MSc by Research, ERASMUS students, summer students). Please contact Prof Williams by email in the first instance.

SRF Vacation Scholarships
SRF funded vacation scholarships are available to enable students to carry out research projects during the summer. Prof. Williams has hosted students before - get in contact to discuss these opportunities (http://srf-reproduction.org/grants-awards/grants/vacation-scholarships/)

Suzannah Williams

BSc Hons, PhD


Associate Professor & Senior Research Fellow

  • Principal Investigator
  • Research Group Leader
  • Lead of Ovarian Research for the Oxford Future Fertility Trust
  • Founder and Lead of Rhino Fertility Project

BIOGRAPHY

Prof. Williams (BSc Zoology, University of Aberdeen) completed her PhD at the Royal Veterinary College, London investigating nutritional regulation of ovarian function using sheep as a model for human. This involved collaborative studies in Glasgow, Dublin and Perth, Australia.

Following her PhD, Prof. Williams was awarded a Wain Fellowship and a Lalor Fellowship to work in Perth, Australia for 2 years. Prof. Williams then moved to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York where she generated a mouse model of primary ovarian insuficency.

Prof. Williams established her research group at the University of Oxford investigating the role of the oocyte in regulating fertility and ovarian function supported by a MRC New Investigator grant.

More Recently

Prof. Williams continues to work on primary ovarian insufficiency and understanding ovarian function in health and disease. Prof. Williams has also expanded her programme of research to study human ovarian function and now leads the Oxford Ovarian Fertility Preservation Research Programme developing fertility preservation techniques.

Prof. Williams has also established the Rhino Fertility Project with the aim of developing techniques to culture rhino ovarian tissue and generate follicles and eggs in vitro. This project will develop techniques using Southern White Rhino ovarian tissue with the goal of saving the Northern White Rhino of which there are only two females left. 

More information is available about the studies being carried out by the Williams group on the Ovarian Research website.

Funding

Research in the Williams group has been funded by the

  • MRC
  • Society for Reproduction and Fertility
  • Icelandic Cancer Society
  • Medical Research Fund
  • John Fell OUP