About Marc

Click below to uncover the good, bad, and ugly parts of my career so far.

CV

Marc was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland.

He completed his Masters in Chemistry at the University of Strathclyde in 2011. In 2015, he completed his Carnegie Trust-sponsored PhD in Chemistry at Strathclyde. From 2015-16, Marc was a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Edinburgh. During that time, he was inducted into the SciFinder Future Leaders in Chemistry programme.

In 2016, Marc won the prestigious Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship and rejoined the Department of Pure & Applied Chemistry at Strathclyde from 2017-20. This position was supported by GlaxoSmithKline, and he was thus the first Strathclyde-GSK Early Career Academic. In 2018, Marc was selected to participate in the Scottish Crucible leadership program, the Merck Innovation Cup, and was part of the Converge Challenge Entrepreneurship Competition Top 30. In 2020, Marc became a CPACT-supported Research Fellow and then Lecturer for Innovation in Education at the University of Bristol.

Most recently, Marc was awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, joining the Department of Pure & Applied Chemistry at Strathclyde in 2021.

He holds a visiting lectureship at the University of Bristol, and a visiting Enterprise Fellowship in the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Strathclyde. In 2021, Marc completed Seth Godin’s altMBA.

Outside academia, Marc is the founder of the safety culture and accident readiness company Pre-Site Safety. He is the author of the book You Are (Not) a Fraud: A Scientist’s Guide to the Imposter Phenomenon.

His interests include physical organic chemistry, computer vision, cheminformatics, virtual reality, process safety, and the psychology of the imposter phenomenon.

Scholarly Links

Awards and Recognition

2023 - JSP Fellow (Bürgenstock Conference)

2023 - Fellow of the Royal Academy of the Arts (FRSA)

2023 - Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)

2022 - IChemE Hanson Medal

2021 - altMBA cohort 47

2020 - UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship

2019 - ACS Chemical Health & Safety highlights and advisory editor

2019 - Chemical Industries Association Writing Competition Winner

2019 - Strathclyde Innovator of the Year (nominated)

2019 - Strathclyde Entrepreneurial Network Rising Stars Programme

2018 - Merck Innovation Cup (invited participant; 1/70 from 2,500 applicants)

2018 - Converge Challenge Entrepreneurship Competition Top 30

2018 - Scottish Crucible leadership and development programme (1 of 33 selected in Scotland)

2017 - Prof. Patrick D. Ritchie Prize for Best PhD Thesis in 2014/15 (U. of Strath.)

2016 - Best Poster Prize – EaStCHEM Conference for Early Career Researchers

2016 - Best Speaker Prize – RSC Early Career Symposium

2016 - SciFinder Future Leaders program participant (1/25 worldwide)

2015 - Gavin Forsyth Award for Most Meritorious PhD Student at 2nd Year stage (U. of Strath.)

2015 - JLCR Wiley Young Scientist Award (for PhD contribution to isotope chemistry)

2015 - Early Career Research Bursary (UK Catalysis Conference)

2014 - Runner Up for the Syngenta UK Postgraduate Scholarship in Organic Chemistry

2014 - 1st Place Speaker Prize – WestCHEM Postgraduate Symposium on Organic Chemistry

2014 - Hamilton-Barrett Prize for Most Meritorious PhD Student at 1st Year stage (U. of Strath.)

2013 - 1st Place Poster Prize – WestCHEM Postgraduate Symposium on Organic Chemistry

2012 - Commercialisation of Ir catalysts w/Strem Chemicals, Ltd. (U. of Strath.)

2011 - Carnegie Trust PhD Scholarship (1/14 in Scotland across all disciplines)

2010 - GSK Prize for Meritorious Final Year UG Student in Organic Chemistry

2011 - 1st Place Speaker Prize – SCI Scottish Undergraduate Research Symposium

2011 - Salters’ Institute UK Graduate Prize Shortlist

2010 - GSK Bursary awardee

2010 - Class Representative for Final Year Pure & Applied Chemistry students

2009 - Recommended for hire after Procter & Gamble One Year Internship

2009 - Thomas Gray Undergraduate Prize for Excellence in Applied Chemistry

2009 - Nuffield UK Undergraduate Summer Research Scholarship

2008 - Carnegie Trust Scottish Undergraduate Summer Research Scholarship

CV of Failures (and lessons learned)

“Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

— Samuel Beckett (Irish Playwright)

The following is an example of my podcast series that presents stories and questions for leaders who want to review how they work with the people in their care:

Your CV is a highlight reel.

For all the successes that decorate a resumé, there are many more failures, near-misses, non-selections, participation medals, and rejection letters. Below is an abbreviated list of my notable career failures along the way to where I am now. The list is ever-growing, and the number of life-lessons therein ever-evolving.

Rejections and Non-awards

2024 Trying and struggling to learn to drive a car in my mid-30s
2024 Spinout business funding (rejected)
2023 Promotion bid (rejected)
2023 Equipment grant (rejected)
2022 More grant applications than rainy Glasgow mornings.
2020 Industrial Snr Scientist (interviewed but denied post)
2020 Research Fellowship (not shortlisted)
2019 University Lectureship (interviewed but denied post)
2019 University Lectureship (interviewed but denied post)
2019 Business Fellowship (not shortlisted)
2019 Research Fellowship (not shortlisted)
2019 European infrastructure grant (cut at first round)
2018 Research Fellowship (not shortlisted)
2017 Research Fellowship (not shortlisted)
2016 University lectureship (not shortlisted)
2016 Junior Research Fellowship (not awarded)
2015 Junior Research Fellowship (not awarded)
2014 International PhD competition (not shortlisted)

It cannot be stressed enough:

This list is abbreviated. My full list of failed grant proposals, competitions, and job applications is simply too long to remember. The important thing is that my failures are plenty in number. They vastly outrank the number of successes and highlights. In this I am not alone.

We try again. We fail again. And we try to fail better.

*Marc presenting his thoughts on Imposter Syndrome (more appropriately known as the Impostor Phenomenon) to a cohort of PhD students.*

Failing Better

Glasgow’s Royal College of Physicians holds my most surreal experience of déjà vu. There, among the ancient books and the bronze busts, I had the privilege of speaking in front of a cohort of PhD students. The students were part of a select group of Scottish scholars of whom I was an alumnus. Standing on the varnished stage, looking out in silence at the expectant crowd, I was thrust back into their position. My mind dragged my spirit from my body and back in time to when I started my own PhD.

Years before speaking to those PhD students in Glasgow, I was one. I had sat among similarly bright students, thinking about all their wonderful successes and expertise compared to my own. The self-imposed dread and pressure to succeed was deeply intimidating.

When I gave my lecture, it was after my PhD, after my post doc, after I started my own research team, after countless battles with self-doubt. In essence, I stood on that stage in Glasgow to share my realisation that unspoken failures come before visible success. I told students about my CV and my CV of Failures (many in the audience had never heard of the latter). You can read more about the concept here.

Whilst my points of advice were warmly received, there was something I missed. Something I forgot to share. What I hadn’t told the students was something one of the wise charity trustees told me after my talk. They told me that handling failure isn’t solely about about creating a CV of Failures. It’s about the CV of Failures…and what lessons you learned in the process of populating the list. So, here it is, not just my CV of Failures, but what I’ve learned from having suffered more career failures than I can count:

1. Show your work to people you trust.

It’s easy to become blinkered by your ambition. It’s even easier to think that you don’t need help, that shouldn’t ask for help. This has been a mistake of mine in the past and something I’ve worked hard to improve. Being open to critical feedback does not mean being open to intellectual slaughter. It’s being willing to learn from other points-of-view so that your work can become greater than the sum of the trusted reviews you accumulate.

2. Failure is not ‘Game Over’.

The moment the result comes in, the moment you hear that you haven’t made it, that you haven’t been picked this time…that’s when it hurts the most. It could be for the first time or it might be for the one hundredth time, it doesn’t matter. Rejection hurts. Every time. But in those moments of concentrated disappointment and resentment, it’s crucial to remember that you’ll live to fight another day. The possibility to try again is a privilege in its own right.

3. Never ever stop.

Persistence and grit are terms oftentimes thrown around in leadership circles, and it’s because they matter. What would be worse than suffering those horrible rejections that add another line to the CV of Failures? For me, the rejections would pale in comparison to the regret of never having tried at all. What if I had gone for one more grant? What if I went for that job, that course, that fellowship?

If you never try, you never fail, and you never give yourself the chance to fail better. To win.

Infamous basketball player Michael Jordan frankly describes his success:

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

— Michael Jordan