Biography

I am a Royal Society Research Professor (2021 –), the Society's premier research award, and hold the Kelvin Chair of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. For six months in 2023 I was the interim Executive chair of EPSRC, the UK’s national research funding council for the physical sciences.

I am the Principal Investigator of QuantIC (2014 –), the UK's Centre of excellence for research, development, and innovation in quantum-enhanced imaging, bringing together eight UK universities and more than 40 industry partners.

My research covers all things optical, from the way in which light behaves as it pushes and twists the world around us to the application of new techniques in imaging and sensing systems. My group has published over 400 papers that have amassed ≈70,000 (Google) citations with an h-index of 134. Since 2019 I have been named each year by Web of Science as a globally highly-cited researcher (based on subject-normalised, article-level, metrics), one of typically fewer than 10 UK physicists named each year.

I am a Fellow of the Royal Society (UK) and have won national and international prizes (see above) including, in 2019, the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society and in 2021 the Quantum Electronics Award from the IEEE Photonics Society.

During my 5-year term as Vice-Principal for Research at the University of Glasgow, my team led a programme to strengthen research culture (before the concept was fully established) to allow more researchers to excel. From being in the lower quartile of the Russell Group in REF 2014, Glasgow rose to mid table (and 5th for outputs) in REF 2021. I understand how Universities work, both as a human network and as a financial operation.

For REF 2014, I was a panel member for Physics and Astronomy and in 2021 was appointed as the physics sub-panel chair. I am an expert, and have published in, most of the UK’s strategic technologies, from quantum technology to AI and future telecommunications.

During my six months as interim leader of EPSRC, through building stronger ties across UKRI and supported by the network of Government Chief Scientific Advisors, I increased the number of funded doctoral training centres by 50% (+≈1,500 students). I rebuilt the morale of EPSRC staff and led the transformation of its relationship with the rest of UKRI.

I have served on many grant, fellowship, and award committees, including the Leverhulme Trust Research Awards Advisory Committee; I chaired the fellowship election sectional committee 2 of the Royal Society, now chair their early career researcher fellowship panel and sit on their nominations committee. Internationally I was elected to the Board of Directors of SPIE, the leading international society for optics and photonics, chaired the physical sciences committee of the Hong Kong’s 2020 research assessment exercise and have been invited to chair again in 2026.