I studied Natural Sciences and Electrical Sciences at Robinson College, Cambridge University, receiving the BA degree in 1984.  My PhD degree was awarded in 1989, for research into the application of electron-beam lithography to the fabrication of Bragg gratings for 1550 nm DFB semiconductor lasers, work carried out at the Microelectronics Research Centre, part of Cambridge University’s Cavendish Laboratory.

In 1989, I joined STC Technology Laboratories, Harlow, U.K. (later acquired by Nortel), working for several years on the design and development of InP-based semiconductor lasers for undersea optical systems and other applications.  Subsequent work at Nortel involved research into various aspects of optical communications systems and networks, including wavelength division multiplexing, all-optical wavelength conversion, optical regeneration, optical packet switching, and coherent optical detection.

I joined the Photonics Group in the UCL Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering as a Senior Research Fellow in 2005, becoming a Lecturer in the Department in 2014.