Sam Ladak completed his PhD at the University of Exeter in 2006, studying hot electron transport across double-barrier magnetic tunnel junctions. After a year in industry, he went on to carry out postdoctoral positions at York and then Imperial, where the studied artificial spin-ice. In 2012, Sam was awarded a Chancellors Fellowship at Cardiff University where he established a group dedicated to the study of 3D nanostructured magnetic materials. Today he is a Reader in condensed matter physics. Over the past five years he has pioneered the use of two-photon lithography along with processing in order to realise a range of novel 3D magnetic nanostructures, from single nanowire systems to extended lattices. His recent work has focussed upon the study of ground state ordering in 3D artificial spin-ice systems.