Personal Statement
I have more than 30 years’ academic and industrial experience in laser engineering / photonics R&D, including previous employment with BAE Systems. In addition to my research and teaching, I have carried out knowledge exchange and training activities in laser technology since 1995, in support of SMEs and learners in regional and European industry. I have over 180 scientific publications including 100 journal papers and 4 patents awarded / published and have co-supervised 40 PhD students. I have been Principal Investigator at this University on numerous funding awards including EU H2020 projects ENCOMPASS and LASIG-TWIN, EPSRC project Towards In-Combustion Event Feedback control in laser ignition (TICEF) and ERDF funded project Knowledge Exchange in Laser Engineering (KE-Las). I have also been Co-Investigator on the Cockcroft Institute Core Grant, on TSB projects PRISM, PARALASE, SUADIP and DL-POP, on EPSRC projects FLAVIIR and ULTRAFAST, on DTI-LINK Foresight project LASIIC and on Carbon Trust, EPSRC KTA, EU Marie Curie and Northern Way (Printed Electronics) awards. I have worked with more than 100 external collaborators and organisations worldwide including academic institutes, industry partners and research organisations. UK-based industry partners have included Ford Motor Company, BAE Systems, QinetiQ, Honda Engineering, Coherent, Oxford Lasers, Hamamatsu Photonics, DermaSense, SureSensors, Gwent Group and many SMEs.