I am a staff researcher in the optical/near-IR instrumentation group at the Astrophysics department. I am designing and constructing astronomical instruments for large telescopes. Currently I spend most of my time working as instrument scientist for the HARMONI integral field spectrograph, one of the first light instruments for the future 39m European Extremely Large Telescope. I am also working on another instrument is ELT-PCS — the planetary camera and spectrograph for the ELT. We are conducting research and development into instrument technology that allows us to achieve very high direct-imaging contrast in order to characterise earth-like planets around sun-like stars.
In the past I was heavily involved in the design and construcion of the SWIFT spectrograph at the 5m Hale telescope which we recently refurbished with a new 16mas spaxel scale. Before that I was working on the design of the KMOS spectrograph modules, and prior to that I designed the SPIFFI spectrometers, which was part of the SINFONI instrument on the ESO VLT, soon be be re-commissioned as the SPIFFIER spectrometer as part of the ERIS instrument.