I completed an MSci in Physics with Astrophysics in 2008, and a PhD in Physics and Chemistry in 2011, both from the University of Bristol. My PhD investigated the effects of atomic-scale changes to the surface structure in diamond on its electron emission properties. The discovery of a negative electron affinity lithium-oxide termination that dramatically decreased the workfunction of the C100 and C111 diamond surfaces was patented in 2014. 

After my PhD I spent two years in the renewable energy industry as a consultant engineer, advising financial investors on the technical viability of wind and solar energy installations. In 2013 I returned to academic research as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Oxford, where I managed the atom probe tomography lab, using this amazing characterisation technique to analyse the atomic-scale chemistry of many materials and applications, including aerospace engine alloys, the effects of irradiation on nuclear materials, biomaterials and wide band gap semiconductors. I was awarded the David Cockayne Junior Research Fellowship in Materials from Linacre College Oxford for my work.

In 2017 I returned to the University of Bristol as a fixed-term lecturer in Nuclear Materials and Fuel Cycle, designing several new lecture courses to support the new MSc in Nuclear Science and Engineering, and setting up my research group. In 2019 I successfully won a permanent lectureship in the Physics of Materials and Devices, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Materials Physics in 2021 and Associate Professor in Materials Physics in 2023. In 2022 I was awarded the Amazon Physical Science Fellowship, and in 2024 the EDF/Royal Academy of Engineering Senior Research Fellowship in Correlative Microscopy for Nuclear Power.