Curriculum Vitae

Feb. 2021 onwards — UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, The University of Nottingham, UK

• Received a 4-year £1.2 million fellowship to develop novel optical fibre endoscopes using metasurfaces to improve detection of hard-to-reach cancers such as pancreatic and ovarian.
• UKRI Press Release
• UoN Press Release

Jan. 2022 – present — Associate Professor, The University of Nottingham, UK

• Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering

Apr. 2019 – Dec. 2021 — Assistant Professor, The University of Nottingham, UK

• Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering

Oct. 2016 – Mar. 2019 — Postdoctoral Research Associate, The University of Cambridge, UK

• Named researcher on CRUK Multidisciplinary Project Award entitled “Multidimensional Molecular Imaging for Early Cancer Diagnosis” to develop and test holographic optical fibre endoscope.
• Collaboration between Engineering, Physics, CRUK Cambridge Institute and MRC Cancer Unit.
• Spun out from project I initiated as a Research Fellow.

Oct. 2013 – Sep. 2016 — Henslow Research Fellow, The University of Cambridge, UK

• Selected from over a hundred applicants to be awarded a 3-year stipendiary fellowship at St. Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge, funded by the Cambridge Philosophical Society.
• Self-directed and independent research programme on cutting-edge applications of holographic modal control of optical fibres.

Jun. 2013 – Sep. 2013 — Postdoctoral Research Associate, The University of Cambridge, UK

• Designed and conducted experiments in holographic modal control of multimode optical fibres for telecommunications applications.

Feb. 2009 – Sep. 2009 — Software Engineer, Taste Technologies Ltd., Auckland, New Zealand

• Developed commercial software to operate industrial fruit sorting equipment.
• Used C++ Visual Studio .NET and C extensively.

Nov. 2008 – Mar. 2009 — Research Assistant in Signal and Image Processing, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

• Conducted research on shape recognition algorithms and the effect of pixellation on Fourier analysis of shapes.

Jan. 2008 – Feb. 2008 — Research Assistant in Optical Fibre Communication Systems, The University of Sydney, Australia

• Worked in the Centre for Ultra-high Bandwidth Devices in Optical Systems (CUDOS).
• From my 8-week summer internship I produced a paper demonstrating a modified Mach-Zehnder Modulator as a novel ultra-high bit rate data transmitter.

2009 – 2013 — Ph.D. in Engineering, The University of Cambridge, UK.

• Ph.D. thesis, entitled, “Design of Indoor Communication Infrastructure for Ultra-high Capacity Next Generation Wireless Services”, looked at technologies for advanced distributed antenna systems that are set to enable next-generation wireless networks to provide the ultra-high speeds demanded by users.
• Supported by a full scholarship from the Royal Society of New Zealand and the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust.

2005 – 2008 — Bachelor of Engineering (Hons.) in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.

• Achieved first class honours with second highest overall grades from a class of 100
• Maurice Paykel Undergraduate Scholarship

• Received a 4-year £1.2 million fellowship to develop novel optical fibre endoscopes using metasurfaces to improve detection of hard-to-reach cancers such as pancreatic and ovarian.
• UKRI Press Release
• UoN Press Release

• Co-PI of a team based at Swansea, Oxford, Glasgow and Nottinghtm for a £100,000 grant (“RETHOMS: Real-time high-sensitivity optrode metabolic sensor for pancreatic cyst fluids”) to develop a novel electro-optic sensing modality for improved analysis of pancreatic cyst fluid for early cancer detection.
• CRUK Press Release

Apr. 2017 — Pioneer Award, Cancer Research UK

• Co-PI with Dr. Sarah Bohndiek of £175,800 grant (“Shedding light on cancer using nanoplasmonic metapixels”) to develop nanostructured plasmonic metasurfaces as optical filters for multimodal cancer imaging.

Feb. 2016 — Pump Prime Grant, Cambridge Cancer Centre Early Detection Programme

• Co-PI with Dr. Sarah Bohndiek, Prof. Tim Wilkinson and Prof. Rebecca Fitzgerald of internally-funded £100,000 grant (“Low-cost wide-field holographic capsule endoscopy for early detection of oesophageal cancer”) to build a low-cost phase-imaging capsule endoscope for early detection of oesophageal cancer.

Sep. 2014 — Pump Prime Grant, Cambridge Cancer Centre

• Co-PI with Dr. Sarah Bohndiek and Prof. Tim Wilkinson of £59,400 internally-funded grant (“A Digital Holographic Endoscope for Early Cancer Detection”) to build a dual-polarisation holographic optical fibre endoscope.
• Led on to CRUK Multidisciplinary Project Award.

Mar. 2013 — STEM for Britain Bronze Award, The UK Parliamentary and Scientific Committee

• Third place prize at the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) for Britain annual poster contest held at the House of Commons.
• Selected from 59 short-listed candidates from engineering departments across the UK.
• Awarded a cash prize of £1000 for poster entitled, “Mode-Division Multiplexing for Ultra-fast Optical Fibre Communication.”

Oct. 2009 — Rutherford Memorial Scholarship,  Royal Society of New Zealand

• Awarded one of two prestigious scholarships, worth £80,000, to cover the full cost of undertaking a Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge.

Dec. 2009 — IEEE Member and Geographic Activities Board GOLD Achievement Award, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

• One of six recipients of this award, which I received for, “exceptional leadership and outstanding contributions to the development of the IEEE GOLDRush Newsletter” during my time as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE GOLDRush newsletter, a volunteer newsletter sent to 30,000 recent engineering graduates worldwide.

Aug. 2007 — Maurice Paykel Undergraduate Scholarship, The University of Auckland and Fisher & Paykel Appliances

• One of four recipients of this scholarship, worth £1000, awarded to New Zealand-based engineering students to assist them with their undergraduate studies.
• Selection criteria include, “academic merit, leadership qualities, communication skills, community involvement.”

Jun. 2010 – May 2011 — Middle Combination Room (MCR) President, Trinity College, The University of Cambridge, UK

• President of the College’s society for graduate students.
• Represented and organised events for over 400 graduate students and liaised with the University on their behalf.
• Lead a committee of 11 people.
• Key achievements: overhauled the constitution; introduced an online dinner booking system and an online voting system.

Jan. 2009 – Dec. 2009 — Editor in Chief of IEEE GOLDRush Newsletter, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

• Responsible for writing, editing and producing an online newsletter distributed to 30,000 recent engineering graduates worldwide.
• Lead a committee of 15 people around the world via email and Skype.
• Key achievements: instituted a new online submission and peer-review system to cope with large numbers of submissions; moved the publication onto Facebook and Twitter to broaden reach.

Jan. 2007 – Dec. 2008 — Chair of the University of Auckland IEEE Student Branch, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

• Represented and organised events for the 220 student members of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers at the University of Auckland.
• Lead a committee of 13 people.
• Key achievements: organised an interviews workshop involving 20 industry representatives and 70 students; increased branch membership by 40%; helped the branch to win two international IEEE awards.

Mar. 2019 – Jun. 2021 — Module convenor, Artificial Intelligent and Intelligent Systems, The University of Nottinham, UK

• Developed new module from scratch
• Created 9 x 2-hour lectures and 6 x 2-hour labs covering the following topics:
  • Decision trees and random forests
  • Information entropy
  • Support Vector Machines
  • Clustering (k-means, hierarchical, density)
  • Reinforcement learning and Q-learning
  • Bayesian inference and Bayesian networks
• Led team of 2 academics and 4 teaching assistants.

Mar. 2010 – Jun. 2015 — Supervisor/Tutor, Photonic Technology, The University of Cambridge, UK

• Run biweekly supervisions (tutorials in groups of two) for third-year undergraduate engineering students.
• Course covers optical fibres and photonic components including light emitting diodes, laser diodes, photodiodes and solar cells.

Oct. 2011 – Jun. 2014 — Supervisor/Tutor, Electrical and Information Engineering, The University of Cambridge, UK

• Run weekly supervisions (tutorials in groups of two) for first-year undergraduate engineering students on a year-long introductory course.
• Course covers physical principles of electronics, electromagnetics, linear circuits and devices, AC power, digital circuits and information processing.

Feb. 2010 – Mar. 2012 — Laboratory Demonstrator, Semiconductor Engineering and Photonic Technology, The University of Cambridge, UK

• Assisted third-year undergraduate students to complete two laboratory exercises on Schottky diodes and semiconductor lasers.
• Marked lab reports, interviewed and graded students.

Feb. 2008 – Jun. 2008 — Teaching Assistant, Electronics, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

• Helped second-year undergraduate students to understand and construct electrical circuits involving operation amplifiers in a laboratory environment.

• Helped design physics demonstrations for public engagement.
• Explained principles of advanced imaging, from photoacoustic imaging to polarimetry, to a broad public audience, ranging from young children to the elderly.

• Volunteered on RAEng sponsored programme for high-achieving sixth-form students considering studying Engineering at Cambridge.
• Gave tours of cleanrooms, laboratories and explained latest research on advanced endoscopic imaging.