I graduated from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) with a degree in Chemistry (specialising in Chemical Physics) and followed it with a Ph.D for work on depolarized Rayleigh light scattering from ionic solutions with Julian Clarke (Thesis title: Light Scattering Studies of Molecular Dynamics in Solutions and Liquids (1979)). I was interested in solar power, but not being a physicist I thought I was unlikely to get work studying photovoltaics. I still thought I want to do experimental work and pSerhaps the route for me was to study splitting of water by sunlight to produce hydrogen. The closest project I could find to this idea that suited my background (there was no internet!) was one on the infra-red laser photoionization in liquids at the chemistry department in York. Actually the reaction had already been demonstrated on water and the idea was to extend the work to alcohols. The photon yield for these turned out to be at least an order of magnitude lower than that of water and the neodinium laser had a repetition rate of only one pulse every 3 minutes making it too slow to get any viable results. I was fortunate that Julian Clarke was still prepared to offer me a post back in Manchester to take up a project doing Molecular Dynamics computer simulation of simple liquids.
That contract duly came to an end and I worked for a short spell in an analytical lab run by a lecturer who had taken early retirement. The work was in labs leased by GEC at Trafford Park in Manchester and next door to Micanite and Insulators Ltd. (M&I), then part of GEC. In due course I moved to work with them and encountered Electrorheological (ER) fluids for the first time. I thought that these unusual materials might have a future and when I moved to take up a temporary lectureship in Physical Chemistry at Manchester University M&I funded a computer to do some simulation work on ER fluids. I lectured on molecular spectroscopy and photochemistry and in analogue electronics on an MSc course. However, the lectureship was indeed temporary (filling in for someone on sabbatical) and when it finished, I took a post with Andrew Masters working on the simulation of liquid crystals. On the basis of my work on ER fluids I later got the opportunity to work on the analysis and theory of ER devices and fluids with W.A. Bullough at the department of Mechanical Engineering at the University Sheffield.
By the end of that project, interest in ER fluids had waned (though not in Japan and China where research continued) and in the absence of further funding I moved to Leeds (Dept of Food Science) to work on simulations of particle gels with Eric Dickinson with the objective of understanding the rheology of yoghurt, cheeses and other foodstuffs. I stayed to work on simulations of colloidal particle scattering with Brent Murray: an experiment designed to investigate inter-particle forces.
I returned to Sheffield in 2001 and was fortunate to get a research post in the Department of Information Studies with Peter Willett and Val Gillet. I went for the post thinking information had to be a good field to be in these days. It did not disappoint. It was a great group to work with and an interesting time for me. I also got a chance to do a little lecturing in Optics , filling in for a colleague in the orthoptics deparment of the medical school. I initially worked on a project in virtual screening (data mining of chemical databases) by similarity searching funded by Unilever. This included an introduction to Data Fusion techniques which I developed in greater depth during a project with Pfizer. I later moved to a new project in the same department investigating how the general public search the web with Nigel Ford and Barry Eaglestone. This was quite a departure for me (in that no connection at all with chemistry was involved) and involved interacting with real people as well as computers for a change.
Still in Sheffield, I returned to more familiar ground, programming in Fortran again, this time using a mesoscopic simulation technique known as Dissipative Particle Dynamics to investigate colloidal systems with Karl Travis in the dept of Engineering Materials. In the last few years I have moved into another new area working with Shaun Quegan in the dept of Applied Maths investigating how to use satellite-based radar remote-sensing techniques to detect deforestation. That has brought me into contact with climate research and has given me personally a much better understanding of the challenges in that field.
Now in semi-retirement I have worked on a couple of projects in the last few years. The first used Python to help with Data Analysis on a project aiming to find repurposed drugs to combat Parkinsons disease. The second has been with the National Nuclear Laboratory developing Statistical Associating Fluid Dynamics (SAFT) methods for applications in the nuclear decommissioning work.