Carl studied for his undergraduate degree in Chemistry at Balliol College, University of Oxford, graduating in 2010 following a final year project in organofluorine chemistry and catalysis with Professor Véronique Gouverneur FRS. He then moved to the University of Bristol as a PhD student under the supervision of Professor Guy Lloyd-Jones FRS, later moving with the Lloyd-Jones group to the University of Edinburgh, where he worked on diazomethane chemistry and cyclopropanation.

Following completion of his PhD in 2015, Carl remained in the Lloyd-Jones group for a short postdoc working on the synthesis of isotopically-labelled tracers for atmospheric chemistry. He then moved to RWTH Aachen for a postdoc working on homobimetallic catalysis with Professor Franziska Schoenebeck. In 2017, he was appointed as a fixed-term teaching fellow in the School of Chemistry at Trinity College Dublin, and was made permanent in 2020. He moved to the University of Manchester as a lecturer in chemistry in 2021, and was promoted to senior lecturer in 2025.

Carl is currently subject lead for laboratory teaching, and academic lead for graduate teaching assistants in the Department of Chemistry.

Outside of his duties at the University of Manchester, Carl serves as the Co-Chair of Chemistry Olympiad Ireland, organising the selection and training of Team Ireland for the International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO). As part of this role, he has acted as one of the Mentors for Team Ireland at IChO since 2020; during this time, the team has won two silver medals, three bronze medals, and three honourable mentions.

Carl is the subject lead for laboratory teaching, and therefore has a particular interest in all aspects of practical chemistry education. In addition, he teaches core organic chemistry topics (Y1, Y3 + MSc), and supervises Y3 group projects in homogeneous transition metal catalysis and mechanistic organic chemistry. He also supervises Y4 MChem and MSc research projects in chemistry education.

At present, Carl lectures the following courses:

• Structure and Reactivity, CHEM10101 Introductory Chemistry
• Reactive Intermediates, CHEM30411/31411/60411 Core Chemistry 1

He teaches in the following laboratory courses:

• CHEM22600 (senior demonstrator, synthesis lab)
• CHEM30620 (course convenor and senior demonstrator, synthesis lab)
• CHEM69999 (senior demonstrator)

In addition, he acts as organic chemistry tutor for groups in years 1 and 2, and as academic advisor to ~25 undergraduate students across Y1-Y4.

Carl has supervised the following MChem and MSc students at the University of Manchester:

Yucheng Wang (MSc, 2025) - The influence of A-level Chemistry and Mathematics choices on the curriculum design of undergraduate chemistry programmes at UK universities.

Zoha Ahmad Sheikh (MChem, 2025) - Evaluating student reasoning and curriculum design related to pericyclic reactions.

Pakeeza Rauf (MSc, 2024) - Investigating organic reaction mechanisms at the A-level to undergraduate transition.

Maha Khan (MChem, 2024) - Evaluating how the teaching and assessment of mechanistic organic chemistry has evolved in the UK over the last century.

Ming-Ken Wu (MSc, 2023) - Radical cyclisations for the undergraduate chemistry laboratory.

Ali Mohammed (MChem, 2023) - Understanding the taught curriculum in organic mechanisms: exploring teachers' notions and perspectives of how organic reaction mechanisms are taught at A-level.

Tingting Weng (MSc, 2022) - Evaluating the effectiveness of chemistry textbooks in developing mechanistic thinking.

Shauna Rogers (MChem, 2022) - How do stakeholders in chemistry education perceive the value and efficacy of feedback and assessment in laboratory teaching.