Senior Beamline Scientist, Diamond Light Source
Protein crystallographer and instrument scientist who cares about the best possible data, loves code and Linux, and enjoys helping people grow.
I'm a Senior Beamline Scientist at Diamond Light Source, the UK's synchrotron, a proud dad, and an uncle to the next generation. I've spent most of my working life around X-rays and protein crystals. Since 2011 I've worked in beamline science rather than as a full-time researcher, looking after the whole chain that turns a crystal into good data: the hardware and electronics, the code and Linux systems that drive them, and the people who use them, from visiting scientists to the colleagues I train. I love a good problem, and it's even better when someone else's science gets the win.
I work on I04, a macromolecular crystallography beamline at Diamond. Most days that means helping visiting scientists turn a tray of tiny crystals into the best data they can get, and making the beamline a little better for the next group.
Since 1998 I've collected data at more than five synchrotrons and helped deposit over 60 structures in the Protein Data Bank: metalloproteins, membrane proteins, viral proteins and the odd surprise. I'm a biochemist at heart: I want to know what a protein does, and how its shape explains it.
I like understanding the whole instrument, from motors, detectors and electronics to the software that drives them. I write data-acquisition code that keeps the hardware safe (robots that don't collide, no direct beam on the detector) and makes good data the default: a beamline checked the same way every day, and an X-ray dose matched to the crystal.
Linux has been part of my life since the 1990s, when I swapped a Windows network for it to learn the layer below: how operating systems, networks and the internet really work. In Australia I fell for virtual machines and containers, and I still love writing code, mostly Python. All of it rests on open source: good tools are better shared.
Some of my proudest moments are other people's: a PhD student finishing, or a colleague I trained moving on to a more senior role, even if they end up outshining me. I co-supervise PhD students, teach on CCP4 and Diamond courses, and I'm a mental health first aider at work.
I was President of the Society of Crystallographers in Australia and New Zealand, and I'm a Fellow of the BCA and of the Royal Society of Biology. Closer to home, I'm a Didcot town councillor. I'm not very good at saying no.
3ZE3A small membrane kinase solved with both synchrotron and XFEL radiation.
2YEVA respiratory complex IV with its own fused cytochrome c domain.
3PDSA G-protein-coupled receptor caught in complex with a covalently bound agonist.
