I graduated from Queen Mary University of London with an MSci in Physics in 2003 before moving to the University of Edinburgh to begin a PhD. My research focussed on direct Dark Matter searches and developing low background instruments capable of recording extremely rare and faint signals from particle interactions. In particular, I worked on directional Time Projection Chambers (TPC) with gaseous targets and the construction and exploitation of the DRIFT-II Dark Matter experiment at Boulby Mine.

Following the completion of my PhD in 2006 I remained in Edinburgh but moved to the ZEPLIN programme, building TPCs with dual-phase xenon targets. The ZEPLIN programme pioneered this technology, with ZEPLIN-II the first to search for Dark Matter. In 2011, after completion of the ZEPLIN-III experiment where I had led areas of analyses, Monte Carlo simulations, and delivery of the veto system for which I was awarded the Institute of Physics Astroparticle Physics Group's Early Career Researcher Award, I moved to UCLA. There I joined the XENON100 experiment based at Gran Sasso, Italy, working on calibrations, analyses and simulations. XENON100, also a xenon TPC, became the world’s most sensitive experiment, setting the most stringent constraints on Dark Matter interactions. I continued research in low radioactivity techniques and technologies there, developing novel ultra-low background photosensors, performing R&D for the XENON1T experiment, and argon-based TPCs for the DarkSide experiment, also based at Gran Sasso. 

In 2012 I joined the High Energy Physics group at UCL to initiate direct Dark Matter research and noble gas TPC R&D. I joined the xenon TPC based LUX Dark Matter experiment, operated at SURF, S. Dakota, and led one of the primary analysis Working Groups to identify and characterise potential Dark Matter signals. LUX overtook XENON100 as the world-leading experiment in 2013 and has remained at the forefront of Dark Matter searches since, with a series of results of unprecedented sensitivity. I am the UK’s Principal Investigator for LUX.  

I am one of the founding members and presently international Spokesperson of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Experiment that brings together the LUX and ZEPLIN programmes to deliver the most ambitious direct Dark Matter experiment yet. Following 10 years of construction, LZ released first results in 2022 from a short engineering run to demonstrate operation as designed whilst also establishing LZ as the most sensitive experiment in the search for galactic dark matter. LZ now enters completely unexplored parameter space in search of a first detection of dark matter. I led the crucial Backgrounds and Screening Work Package that ensures the experiment meets its low-background construction requirements, and delivers the high-precision Background Model against which any potential signal will be evaluated. Low-background construction is achieved through the world-class infrastructure I have developed in the UK.

I am also a member of the XLZD Consortium, serving on its Steering Group, to construct a global Xenon-based experiment that would definitively test the most promising dark matter models and prove exciting new physics inaccessible anywhere else.

I previously held roles including Chair of the Dark Matter UK (DMUK) Consortium; Chair of the STFC’s Particle Astrophysics Advisory Panel (PAAP); STFC Boulby Science Advisory Group and SNOLab Experiment Advisory Committee member.