I was an undergraduate at Durham University from 1983 to 1986 where I read Physics. I then undertook a PhD at Durham in the astronomical instrumentation group. As part of my PhD thesis I was involved in the construction of one of the first civilian adaptive optics (AO) systems for astronomy, the MARTINI instrument. I obtained my PhD in adaptive optics in 1990 and took up a post as a Research Assistant within the astronomical instrumentation group. In the course of my research I worked on upgrades to the MARTINI instrument and a new high order AO instrument which will form the core of a common user system due to be commissioned at the William Hershel Telescope in summer 2000. I joined the Optical Science Laboratory at UCL as a lecturer in October 1998.