I studied for a BSc in Physics at the University of Queensland in Australia and was awarded a PhD in Physics from the same university in 1996 working on applied laser spectroscopy. From 1997 to 2001 I was a Postdoctoral Research Associate, and then a Research Scientist and Lecturer in the Applied Physics Group in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at Princeton University working on an interdisciplinary project with Sandia National Laboratories and Lawrence Livermore developing a new type of wind tunnel for accelerating gases to hypersonic speeds using lasers and electron beams. In 2001, I took up the position of Lecturer in the Physics Department at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland and became a Senior Lecturer in 2004. In October 2006 I joined the AMOPP group at Department of Physics and Astronomy at UCL as a Reader and are currently an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow. I was promoted to Professor in October 2007.