I am a member of the Accelerator Physics group within the ASTeC department at STFC Daresbury Laboratory. I am currently involved with three major accelerator research and development projects within ASTeC.

I am project sponsor for the core instrument design for RUEDI (Relativistic Ultra-fast Electron Diffration and Imaging), which is a new facility being built in collaboration with the overall project lead from the University of Liverpool (Prof Nigel Browning) and the Rosalind Franklin Institute (Prof Angus Kirkland). This will be a small electron accelerator operating in the 2-4 MeV energy region delivering beams to both imaging and diffraction experiments allowing time dependant studies with very high resolution both temporally and spatially.

I also provide leadership for ASTeC's key underpinning technology project to develop photocathodes for photoinjectors used in next generation electron accelerators. This project involves expanding our expertise in the growth of photocathode materials and the establishment of test equipment to characterise them. Current facilities include a low energy test facility to measure the intrinsic emittance of photocathode materials at room and low temperature and surface analysis facilities to characterise the composition and morphology of candidate materials and preparation procedures; a new system for producing alkali telluride photocathodes has recently been developed. In addition to research into photocathode materials I am also responsible for the delivery of production photocathodes for the VELA and CLARA accelerators. Photocathode preparation is carried out using a dedicated preparation facility that can prepare photocathode pucks that are able to be transferred into the RF guns under an ultra-high vacuum environment. This facility also provides the ability to produce and test novel photocathodes for in-accelerator testing.

In addition, I also play a role in the development of the VELA/CLARA facilities at Daresbury Laboratory. I act as Technical Co-ordinator for user exploitation experiments on the VELA/CLARA machine organising the call for experimental proposals and allocation of time, co-ordinating the local contacts who interface with the principal investigators, monitoring progress during experimental runs and soliciting and analysing the user's feedback after the exploitation period. I am also involved in machine commissioning with responsibility for the measurement of momentum, momentum spread and dispersion along the accelerator and am particularly invested in the commissioning of our new high repetition rate photoinjector for the accelerator.

Prior to transferring to ASTeC, I was manager of mid-range facilities at Daresbury Laboratory, which included the national centre for electron spectroscopy and surface analysis (NCESS) and the medium energy ion scattering facility (MEIS). Before that I had been a support scientist on the MEIS facility, which I helped to build and commission when I joined the laboratory in 1995.  

Before joining the laboratory I completed a Ph.D. in Surface Physics at the University of Warwick sponsored by AEA Technology Ltd, having previously obtained an M.Sc. in Surface Science and Technology from Loughborough University of Technology and a B.Sc. in Applied Chemistry from Brunel University. I have also worked at Coventry Polytechnic as a research assistant investigating diffusion in II-VI semiconductors and for the Malaysian Government carrying out research into the applications of Natural Rubber.​