She obtained her MChem (2002) and PhD (2007) from Swansea University, UK under the supervision of Dr Peter Douglas and was awarded the RSC Ronald Belcher Award for her PhD studies. She subsequently moved to Portugal as an FCT Postdoctoral Fellow between the Universities of Coimbra and Aveiro with Prof. Hugh D. Burrows and Prof. Luis D. Carlos. Rachel is a co-editor of the book Applied Photochemistry (Springer, 2013) and her current research focuses on harnessing self-assembly strategies to design photoactive hybrid materials for application in optical sensors, solar energy conversion and light-emitting displays.