I moved West in 2009 to study Physics with Medical Physics at the University of Galway. After graduation in 2013, I took on an M.Sc through research with the Applied Optics Group. Here I discovered that I seriously wanted to pursue optics as a career. My MSc work took well established techniques from astronomy and applied them to bright field microscopy. The two techniques I looked at were post-facto deconvolution and closed loop adaptive optics correction.

Through my pursuit of aberration correction during my MSc days I developed an interest in the origin and nature of optical aberrations, which led me down the PhD road . I spent the next four years working on novel optical designs for fast photographic lenses aimed at the smartphone consumer market. My PhD project was in Applied Optics from the University of Galway and was one of a group of PhD students funded by Science Foundation Ireland and FotoNation under the Strategic Partnership Programme. 

Following the completion of my PhD in 2019, I spent almost five years in the New Space industry. During this time I developed optical product lines for commercial free space optical communications (FSOC) in Low Earth Orbit, including custom obscuration-free freeform optical telescopes, novel optical elements and optical metrology tools for alignment, integration and test (AIT) of optical payloads.

I joined the Physics academic staff in the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Galway in 2023. I lecture in a few different undergraduate modules, more info can be found here. Outside the lecture halls, I’m usually found working on all things optics and talking shop. Currently, I’m in the design phase of multiple instruments bound for ground-based telescopes across the world. All going well, experimental work is set to kick-off in Winter 2024.  If you would like more information on my work or want to join our research team please drop me an email or call into my office for an old fashioned chat.