Profile

I have lived in Yorkshire, Devon, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Durham, and now I’m settled in Nottingham with my wife and son. I have a workshop where I like to experiment and construct all sorts of furniture and try to learn new ways of making things.

My work often takes me to the early Universe, where classical physics breaks down and we need to understand how quantum physics dictates what is going on. The early moments before, during and just after the Bang Bang set up the initial conditions of the Universe and have led us to where we are today. It could have been very different, and I want to explore why it isn’t

Much of my working day is taken up with work related to students, either undergrad students studying for their degree, or postgraduate students studying for their doctorate. For the undergraduates we have lectures, workshops and tutorials where we work through subjects within physics from quantum mechanics to general relativity. Postgraduate students are more independent, and they have a specific project that they work on, meeting with their supervisors a couple of times a week. I have a number of collaborations on research projects, working with people at Nottingham and at other institutes, so a chunk of my time is spent on that research. I also have a number of administrative duties to help keep the department running smoothly.