Biography
Leena is Assistant Professor of Microbiology at the School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society (EGIS), Institute of Earth and Life Sciences (ILES), Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. She teaches applied, environmental and medical microbiology, supervises undergraduate and postgraduate research projects, and leads an active research programme.
Her research focuses on natural product discovery, drug discovery, host-microbiome interactions and antimicrobial resistance. She applies a range of approaches, including Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies, genome mining and microbial bioinformatics, to explore bacterial diversity and function.
Prior to joining Heriot-Watt University, Leena held a number of research and industry positions across academia and the life sciences sector. She was a Senior Research Associate at the University of Strathclyde, specialicing in next-generation sequencing and transcriptomics to support drug discovery. She also worked at a major contract research organization (CRO) providing preclinical services for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. In addition, she has experience managing EU-funded collaborative research project involving multiple European partners. Leena has also published under the name Dr Leena Nieminen and has presented her work widely at international conferences across Europe, North America and Asia, as well as on the BBC.
Leena holds an MSc in Environmental Microbiology and Chemistry from the University of Helsinki, Finland, and a PhD in Microbiology from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. She is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and holds Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning.