Personal Chair, Head of School
- About
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- Office Address
- School/Department
- School of Natural and Computing Sciences
Biography
I joined the University of Aberdeen in September 2022 as the Head of School of Natural and Computing Sciences. I am a physicist by training having studied Laser Physics and Optoelectronics at St. Andrews, followed by a PhD in Atomic and Laser Physics, also at St. Andrews. I then briefly left academia to join the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (dstl) working on optical imaging technologies.
I returned to St. Andrews in 2002 as a postdoctoral research fellow working on cold atom physics before being awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 2003 to work on holographic optical trapping and beam shaping.
In 2007 I joined the University of Dundee as a Lecturer, and held a variety of roles, including Head of Physics and Associate Dean Research in the School of Science and Engineering.
In 2018 I moved to Australia to take up a Chair and act as the Director, Research Programs in the Faculty of Engineering and IT at the University of Technology Sydney.
My research work focusses on applications of optics in areas such as optical trapping and microscopy. I am interested in making use of these tools in the biomedical science and in environmental sciences (especially in aerosol analysis). I dabble in areas such as THz beam shaping and microfluidics.
I have taught a range of courses throughout my career from first year to research postgraduate. I have been fortunate to teach across disciplinary boundaries, teaching to students taking degrees in topics such as product design to quantum computing.
Qualifications
- MSci (Hons) Laser Physics and Optoelectronics1997 - University of St. Andrews
- PhD Physics2001 - University of St. Andrews
External Memberships
- Member of the Institute of Physics (MInstP)
- Senior Member of the Optica
- Chartered Physicist (CPhys)
- Research
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Research Areas
Accepting PhDs
I am currently accepting PhDs in Physics.
Please get in touch if you would like to discuss your research ideas further.
Research Specialisms
- Photonics and Optical Physics
- Physics
- Physical Chemistry
- Biophysical Science
- Applied Physics
Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
- Teaching
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Teaching Responsibilities
Currently my teaching consists of honours project supervision on the physics program, but am open to supervising projects from students in any subject area interested in experimental or computational optics and photonics, including biophotonics.
In 2023 I will be starting a new Optics 3rd year course, aimed at students studying physics.
- Publications
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Page 3 of 7 Results 51 to 75 of 159
Introduction: Optical trapping and applications feature issue
Biomedical Optics Express, vol. 4, no. 11, pp. 2710-2711Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/BOE.4.002710
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Dye lasing in optically manipulated liquid aerosols
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2024166
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
The spontaneously adhesive leukocyte function-associated antigen-1 (LFA-1) integrin in effector T cells mediates rapid actin- and calmodulin-dependent adhesion strengthening to ligand under shear flow
Journal of Biological Chemistry, vol. 288, no. 21, pp. 14698-14708Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M112.430918
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Resolving stable axial trapping points of nanowires in an optical tweezers using photoluminescence mapping
Nano Letters, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 1185-1191Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/nl304607v
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
HoloHands: Games console interface for controlling holographic optical manipulation
Journal of Optics (United Kingdom), vol. 15, no. 3, 035708Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/2040-8978/15/3/035708
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
A nano-mechanical study on the influence of ultrasound exposure on cellular elasticity
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ULTSYM.2013.0101
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Axial localization improvements when trapping aerosol droplets using an annular beam
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/ota.2013.tw5d.5
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Applied physics: An optical trampoline
Nature, vol. 492, no. 7427, pp. 51-52Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/492051a
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Single aerosol trapping with an annular beam: Improved particle localisation
Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, vol. 14, no. 45, pp. 15826-15831Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/c2cp42925j
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
HoloHands:: Kinect Control of Optical Tweezers
Working Papers: Preprint PapersFlexible particle manipulation techniques with conical refraction based optical tweezers
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.948748
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Observation of the binary coalescence and equilibration of micrometer-sized droplets of aqueous aerosol in a single-beam gradient-force optical trap
Journal of Physical Chemistry A, vol. 116, no. 35, pp. 8873-8884Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/jp4000818
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Directed jetting from collapsing cavities exposed to focused ultrasound
Applied Physics Letters, vol. 100, no. 2, 024104Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3676414
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Analysis of optical trap mediated aerosol coalescence
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.946593
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Mapping optical process in semiconductor nanowires using dynamic optical tweezers
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.928558
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Combining rails and anchors with laser forcing for selective manipulation within 2D droplet arrays
Lab on a Chip, vol. 11, no. 24, pp. 4228-4234Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/c1lc20541b
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Modeling of optical traps for aerosols
Journal of the Optical Society of America B: Optical Physics, vol. 28, no. 12Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/JOSAB.28.002856
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
On the accuracy of framing-rate measurements in ultra-high speed rotating mirror cameras
Optics Express, vol. 19, no. 17, pp. 16432-16437Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.19.016432
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Role of mirror dynamics in determining the accuracy of framing rate in an ultra high speed rotating mirror camera
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.903618
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Optical manipulation of "drops on rails" in two dimensional microfluidic devices
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.893346
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Optical manipulation of aerosols using surface acoustic wave nebulisation
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.892457
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Laser-nucleated acoustic cavitation in focused ultrasound
Review of Scientific Instruments, vol. 82, no. 4, 044902Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3579499
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Optically written optofluidic ice channels
Journal of Optics, vol. 13, no. 4, 044005Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/2040-8978/13/4/044005
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Loading aerosol optical traps using surface acoustic wave devices
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Towards cooling of optically trapped aerosols
Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Conference Proceedings- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/fio.2011.ftua2
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus