Soya completed his MSc degree at Chiba University, Japan, in 2014. During his master’s degree, he developed transition-metal-free one-pot organic reactions using halogen reagents. Afterward, he worked as a researcher in the advanced polymer material department and the agrochemical department of a Japanese chemical company, where he gained experience in fluoropolymer synthesis, organic synthesis, and computer-aided molecular design. Soya is currently a second-year PhD student at the University of Leeds, supervised by Prof. Richard Bourne, Prof. Thomas Chamberlain, Prof. Nikil Kapur and Dr Adam Clayton. His research is focused on applying machine learning for automated chemical library synthesis.