Alan joined the Institute of Photonics in August 2002 as part of Dr David Burns’ solid-state laser engineering team. In 2005, he was awarded a 3-year personal research fellowship by the Royal Society of Edinburgh to develop his research on disk lasers and to build his own research group. He was appointed as an Associate Team Leader at the Institute in 2005 and as a Research Team Leader in 2009. In 2011, he was awarded a European Research Council Starter Grant to work on Diamond Lasers, and in 2014 he was awarded a five-year Fraunhofer UK / Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Laser Engineering. His research centres on the science and engineering of compact solid-state lasers – thermal management, simplified pumping arrangements, and the novel use of synthetic diamond. He jointly leads the Institute’s Advanced Lasers research group with his colleague Dr Jennifer Hastie. The Compact Lasers Team, of which Alan is part, collaborates very closely with Jennifer’s High Brightness Semiconductor Disk Lasers team. In turn, the lasers group as a whole continually collaborates with other Institute staff, in particular the Photonics Materials and Devices group led by Prof. Martin Dawson. Beyond the university, the lasers group regularly collaborates with the Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics, on joint projects, joint studentships and sub-contracts.

Alan has been principal investigator on three EPSRC-funded research grants: on diamond Raman lasers (EP/G00014X/1), on directly diode-laser pumped Ti:sapphire lasers (EP/E036724/1), and on fibre-laser pumped diamond Raman lasers (EP/P00041X/1) in collaboration with Southampton, Thales Optronics, Element Six, SPI Lasers, and Fraunhofer CAP. He works closely with Researcher CoI Dr Vasili Savitski, who coordinates this programme. Alan is also a co-investigator and management board member for the Warwick-led EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Diamond Science and Technology, and was a CoI on phase one of the National Quantum Technology Hub for Sensors and Metrology, assisting the Strathclyde lead, Dr Jennifer Hastie.