Robert carried out his undergraduate masters degree at the University of Oxford in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, completing his 4th year research project at Philipps-Universität Marburg in Prof. Dr. Roland Lill's lab, researching the biogenesis of [4Fe-4S] clusters in the yeast mitochondrion.

Robert’s current project is focusing on metabolic engineering of the lignin biodegradation pathway, with a view to produce relevant chemical products from a renewable source. This project focuses on identifying novel bacteria hosts for metabolic engineering, utilising molecular biology techniques such as cloning, gene expression, biotransformations, fermentation, and RT-qPCR.