Profile

I grew up in Crouch End, London, only walking distance from Alexandra Palace where the BBC broadcast the CHRISTMAS LECTURES from for the first time. 80 years later I’m excited to continue the tradition by presenting the 2016 CHRISTMAS LECTURES ‘Supercharged: Fuelling the future’. I am also a Professor of Materials Chemistry at the University of Bath. I’ve lived in this beautiful city with my wife and two children for the last 10 years and in my spare time I love watching films, listening to indie music and reading The Guardian.

My research involves using powerful computer modelling techniques to investigate how energy-related materials behave at the atomic level. So when people ask me what I do, I sometimes say ‘I model’!

This research is important because the supply of clean, sustainable energy is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. Devices and technology such as lithium batteries and solar panels, rely on specific materials in order to work. If we want to find new and improved technology, we must develop better materials.

I start every day with a single espresso coffee while I make a list of all things I want to get done that day – which I never complete! Then I check my emails and delete all the junk. When I get to the university, I usually spend my morning writing up the findings of my research so I can send them to journals for publication. One of the things I love about my job is working with my research group of PhD students and senior researchers who are all as enthusiastic as I am about materials chemistry and using it to help meet the world’s energy challenge. We talk through their experiments together, bounce ideas around and discuss the latest results. Who knows, maybe the next Nobel Prize winner is in this group?! One of my favourite things about working in science is how much of an international effort it is. I’ll often spend my afternoons on Skype talking to researchers from all over the world who are working on similar experiments to me.