Speaker Biographies

Gavin Bell leads the Surface & Thin Film Group in the Physics Department at Warwick. The group’s work focuses on epitaxial growth of novel materials and the analysis of their crystallographic and electronic structures. We also collaborate on photocathode surface modification for accelerator science, particle physics detectors and UV sensing.

Kieran is a Quality Manager with a passion for continuous improvement at the Science and Technology Facilities Council and a background in large-scale thin film deposition and characterisation. He is also a Chartered Physicist, a Fellow of the IOP, and currently serves as the treasurer of the IOP Thin Films and Surfaces Group.

I am a computational physicist specialising in problems on the boundary of Physical Chemistry and Chemical Physics. In the field of Surface Science, I worked extensively in gas-surface dynamics, and more recently on the local and long-range ordering in hydrogen-bonded molecular networks, particularly ice networks on metal surfaces. I also work in materials chemistry, particularly in the prediction of stable compounds in phase diagrams and in crystal structure prediction.

Liam Dwyer is a technical specialist in the Surface Characterisation platform at the University of Manchester, with a research focus on near-ambient pressure XPS measuring chemical changes under more realistic conditions (https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/equipments/near-ambient-pressure-x-ray-photoemission-spectroscopy-nap-xps).

Phil is a Lecturer and Research Software Engineer in the School of Physics, Engineering & Technology at the University of York. He grew up in the 1980s, where he learned physics at school and computer programming on his 8-bit Sinclair ZX Spectrum. He now combines both interests, developing high-performance software to model and predict new materials using quantum mechanics. Phil chairs the UK Car-Parrinello High-End Computing Consortium, and is the Knowledge Exchange Coordinator for the Particles At eXascale (PAX-HPC) project, part of the UK's ExCALIBUR exascale computing readiness programme.

Georg Held is Principal Beamline Scientist at Diamond Light Source and Visiting Professor at the University of Reading. His research interests concentrate on fundamental aspects of heterogeneous catalysis, in particular structure-functionality relationships at surfaces. Key activities are experimental studies of surface geometries and adsorbate-substrate interactions by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Near Edge X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (NEXAFS) Spectroscopy, and electron diffraction (LEED) in vacuum and under near-ambient-pressure conditions. His current research focusses on the surface chemistry of small bio-relevant molecules (e.g. amino acids) and water on metal surfaces, fundamental aspects of chiral modification of metal catalysts, as well as catalytic, electronic and geometric properties of model and industrial catalysts (in particular size-selected nanoparticles) under reaction conditions. In addition, he is actively involved in developing instrumentation for soft X-ray synchrotron experiments across the “pressure gap”.

Prof. Martin McCoustra is the ScotCHEM Professor of Chemical Physics in the Institute of Chemical Sciences at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. After a PhD and postdoctoral work in gas phase photodissociation dynamics, in 1988 McCoustra joined the staff in the School of Chemical Sciences at UEA and, in collaboration with Prof. Mike Chesters, established a research programme investigating the dissociation dynamics of small saturated hydrocarbons on platinum group metal surface.  Activities in investigating the role of water ice surfaces in stratospheric ozone depletions followed, and were a direction precursor to his establishing one of the first experiments looking at the physics and chemistry of ice surface relevant to astrochemistry at the University of Nottingham following his move there in 1994. At Nottingham, McCoustra rose through the ranks, achieving his Personal Chair in Chemical Physics in December 2005. In August 2006, he moved to his present position and became the first Professor of Chemical Physics in Scotland in the 21st century.

Philip Moriarty is a Professor of Physics and EPSRC Established Career Fellow (2020-2025) in the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham. His research interests span a number of topical themes in nanoscience with a particular focus on single atom/molecule manipulation using scanning probes. He is also a regular contributor to the Sixty Symbols YouTube project, which was awarded the IOP’s Kelvin prize in 2016 “for innovative and effective promotion of the public understanding of physics.” Moriarty has taught undergraduate physics for twenty-five years and has always been struck by the number of students in his classes who profess a love of metal music and by the deep connections between heavy metal and quantum mechanics, as discussed in his first pop sci book, “When The Uncertainty Principle Goes To 11” (Ben Bella, 2018). He blogs at Symptoms Of The Universe.

A Physical Chemist by training, Sven holds the Bragg Centenary Chair in Engineering Applications of Synchrotron Radiation at Leeds. His research in condensed matter science seeks to create disruptive solutions for industrial and societal challenges. He champions the use of advanced X-ray analysis techniques to link structure at molecular and mesoscopic scales to macroscopically observable properties and performance of products, including the process conditions required for their generation.