ISIS ISIS Staff

ISIS Staff

Find out more about our staff and the research groups at ISIS

ISIS Neutron and Muon Source provides world-class facilities for neutron and muon investigations of materials across a diverse range of scientific disciplines, with expert staff from all of these areas on hand to help. Learn more about the people who work for ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, and their groups, below.

Staff Case Studies

Additive Surface Activity
The focus of this study was to establish how polymer matrices with varying degrees of hydrolysis influence the surface properties of small molecule additives.
Adroja (Devashibhai)
In October 2019, Devashibhai Adroja (known as Adroja) will have been at STFC for 20 years. He was drawn to ISIS by “the fantastic science” and the science programme fits well with his research, which is on strongly correlated electron materials.
Agricultural Pesticide Sprays
A team from the University of Manchester, ISIS and Syngenta have been investigating how the solubilisation of plant waxes into non-ionic surfactant micelles affects pesticide release.
Anna Herlihy
From Diamond Sandwich student to ISIS Facility Development Student
Case Study: Harry Sullivan on completing a graduate placement at CERN
Orla Fernie, Science Communications Placement Student spoke to Harry Sullivan about his experience completing a placement at CERN in 2021 as part of his graduate scheme.
Chris Lawson
Technical manager for ISIS ultra-low temperature (ULT) experiments
Dan Faircloth
Dan Faircloth has been working in ISIS for over 17 years and hasn’t looked back since, working to develop ISIS’s international reputation for ion source development.
Debbie Greenfield - Pushing Boundaries for 40 years
From the Higgs Boson to the first neutrons in TS2, four decades of change in RAL’s scientific engineering world has spanned the extraordinary career of Debbie Greenfield. Retiring this month, we take a look back at her incredible achievements.
Dr Lamar Moore
Insights into our ISIS Scientific Software Group Leader
Dr Sarah Rogers
Meet Sarah, our soon-to-be Large Scale Structures and Engineering Division Head at ISIS…
End of Year Placement Interviews 2020/21
As we welcome the next batch of placement students, we wanted to get in touch with the 2020/21 cohort and ask them to reflect on their time in ISIS Neutron and Muon Source.
End of Year Placement Interviews 21/22
As we welcome the next batch of placement students, we wanted to get in touch with the 2020/21 cohort and ask them to reflect on their time in ISIS Neutron and Muon Source.
Gemma Morgan
ISIS Health Physics apprentice
Genoveva Burca
We profile Genoveva on her journey through ISIS from PhD to Beamline Scientist.
Graham Appleby
Graham has had a winding career journey to become the ISIS Business Development Manager, ticking most of the major radiation sources across Europe off his globe-trotting list.
Haroon Rafique
New ISIS starter Haroon tells us of his journey from University to CERN and now to ISIS where he works as an Accelerator Physicist.
Harry Nolan
From work experience student to apprentice, and now undergraduate…
Hayley Cavanagh
Beam Physics Operations Section Leader
Helen Popland
Helen Popland has been an engineer at ISIS since September 2020. For an international woman in engineering special, we spoke with Helen to get to know her better and learn about her experiences at ISIS.
International Women's Day: the inspirational Jacqui Cole!
Prof Jacqui Cole is Head of Molecular Engineering at Cambridge, BASF / Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Data-driven Molecular Engineering of Functional Materials and a joint appointment at ISIS, but she is not the traditional academic!
Jacob Simms - Continuously improving
Jacob Simms has been a mechanical support technician at ISIS for 10 years!
Jasmine Hind
After finishing her placement year in the deuteration lab in the support laboratories, Jasmine Hind will go straight into a full time role within the facility.
Jonathan Speed
A sneak peek into the life of an accelerator engineer...
Koji Yokoyama
Beamline scientist on the muon instrument EMU
Leo Rozanov
While studying for his A-levels, Leo did a week of work experience at ISIS that confirmed his decision to study physics at university, and strengthened his applications for universities in the United States.
Madi Woollard
Apprentice in the mechanical workshop
Matilda Rhodes
From Industrial Placement to ISIS Facility Development PhD student.
Meet the Cryogenics Team 2021
We sat down and spoke to 5 members of our award-winning Cryogenics team to find out what life is like as a member of the team.
Meet the Detector Group 2022
We sat down with three members of the ISIS Detector Group to find out what life is like as a member of the team.
Meet the Placement Students 2022/23
A talk with our new placement students on their time at ISIS so far...
Meet the Sandwich Students 2021
ISIS Neutron and Muon Source would like to welcome our new cohort of Sandwich Students for 2021.The sandwich student scheme offers students the opportunity to spend a year away from their degrees and gain valuable work experience.
Mohamad Kurdi
From placement student to STFC graduate scheme.
Olivia Tindle: being stubborn in the face of adversity
ISIS placement student Olivia has been determined to be a physicist since she was 15, and is now well on her way to getting there, despite struggling at college and being told she should try something else.
Peter Baker Staff Profile
Dr Peter Baker is an Instrument scientist working at the ISIS facility responsible for the MuSR muon instrument.
Ranggi Ramadhan
From ISIS Facility Development Student to Post-doctoral researcher at the ILL
Richard Waite
Richard joined ISIS’ Scientific Computing division after finishing a PhD as part of the ISIS Facility Development Studentship scheme.
Sara Karbassi and Albin Nilson
New Duty Technicians in the Main Control Room
Sarah Fisher
Diagnostics software section leader
Textbook skin cream structure is wrong
Neutrons at ISIS reveal that the microstructure of skin creams is more complex than previously thought.
They’ve made 500 compounds, and plan to make 500 more…
This week, the ISIS deuteration facility celebrated the measurement on WISH of a sample made using the 500th compound synthesised in the lab.
Tristan Canfer
Tristan tells us about his journey through ISIS from apprentice to full-time staff member.
Where can an ISIS industrial placement year take you?
We speak to some previous sandwich students to find out what they're doing now, and how their placement helped them get there.
Will Halcrow - engineering collaboration with the ESS
To celebrate the UK and the European Spallation Source's collaboration, we talked to Will Halcrow, one of the mastermind engineers behind setting up the LoKI instrument.
Zoë Bowden
After joining ISIS straight from school, Zoë is now Head of ISIS Operations and Deputy Director.
Zoë Clark
Zoë is a mechanical design engineer at ISIS on the Graduate scheme, but her route here was not straightforward, going via research, consultancy, and the powerlifting world championships.

Research Groups

Crystallography Group
The group operates seven powder and single-crystal diffraction instruments at ISIS. These are used to characterise the local and average nuclear and magnetic structures of a wide range of different materials.
Detector Systems Group
The ISIS Detector Systems Group researches and develops new detector technologies for the neutron and muon beamlines starting from the physics of detector materials through to delivery of large detection systems.
Disordered Materials
The ISIS Disordered Materials Group develops and operates diffraction facilities to characterize the atomic-scale structure of liquids and disordered solids.
Engineering and Imaging Group
The group operates two of ISIS instruments namely the Engin-x, a high resolution engineering instrument and IMAT, high flux imaging/tomography instrument.
Excitations Group
We operate some of the world's leading neutron spectrometers, able to measure magnetic and atomic excitations over a wide energy and momentum-transfer range.
Industrial and Business Development Group
Contact details of the Industrial and Business Development Group.
Intense Beams Group
The Intense Beams Group works with the Synchrotron Physics group to study the design of future upgrade possiblities for ISIS.
Molecular Spectroscopy
We develop and operate a set of cutting edge neutron spectrometers which provide chemical probes of structure and dynamics ranging from diffusion/rotation, through phonon/bond vibrations, to the ability to observe quantum effects in the zero point energy.
Muons
In addition to neutron production, ISIS is the world's most intense source of pulsed muons for condensed matter research.
Neutron and Muon Instrumentation Development Group
Neutronics Group
Reflectometry Group
Neutrons as a probe for surfaces and interfaces
SANS Group
We operate the most modern and most extensive suite of SANS instruments in the world.
Synchrotron Physics
Accelerator Physicists in the Synchrotron Group are involved in a range of projects, centred on the optimisation, development and upgrading of the ISIS synchrotron and facility.

Operational Groups

Accelerators and Targets
Specialist teams of physicists, engineers and technicians work hard to ensure that the production of neutron beams operates reliably at optimum efficiency 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

ISIS Neutron Muon Source Management

ISIS Advisory Committees
ISIS has several committees of external experts which provide the facility with advice on its science programe and operations. Current committee memberships are listed here.
ISIS Leadership Team
The ISIS Leadership Team (ILT) is the senior leadership board within ISIS, responsible for the development and delivery of the strategy and the oversight of all project and operations. The membership and contact details are shown below.

Experimental Support Groups

Computing Systems Operations
The systems operations group develops and supports the users single login, remote access, networks, WiFi, printers and other systems needed to support operations and experiments
Cryogenics Team
The cryogenics team at ISIS are responsible for superconducting magnets and low-temperature equipment.
Electronics User Support Group
The electronics and sample support group assists with temperature and position measurement systems.
Experiment Controls Group
The experiment controls group develop and support software which enables experiments to be controlled and monitored on ISIS beamlines.
Instrument Support
The instrument support team provide mechanical support to ISIS Operations and the neutron user community.
Pressure and Furnace Team
The pressure and furnace section are a small team of five technicians providing technical support for sample environment equipment to the Neutron user community
Scientific Software
The scientific software group develops and supports Mantid, iDAaaS and other data reduction and analysis systems needed during and after experiments
Soft Matter Team
The Soft Condensed Matter team maintain the sample environment equipment associated with Soft Matter experiments.
Support Laboratories
The support laboratories team are here to help with the equipment and general procedures in the preparation of samples for beamline experiments.
User Programme Software
The user programme software group develops and supports the software used for proposals, visits, ERA & other systems needed to prepare for experiments

Scientists on Individual Merit promotion

Adroja (Devashibhai)
In October 2019, Devashibhai Adroja (known as Adroja) will have been at STFC for 20 years. He was drawn to ISIS by “the fantastic science” and the science programme fits well with his research, which is on strongly correlated electron materials.
Bill David
Professor Bill David had his Level 2 Individual Merit promotion renewed in 2019 for his significant contributions to the development of neutron and X-ray powder diffraction.
Chris Frost
Dr Chris Frost gained his Individual Merit promotion in 2019. He works on the ChipIr instrument and as Industry Liaison Manager.
Dan Faircloth
Dan Faircloth has been working in ISIS for over 17 years and hasn’t looked back since, working to develop ISIS’s international reputation for ion source development.
David Keen
David Keen, from the Crystallography group at ISIS, gained his individual merit promotion in March 2021. We caught up with him to find out more.
Francis Pratt
Shinji Machida
Shinji Machida was awarded an Individual Merit promotion in 2017. Here we get to know a bit more about him, and what led to his promotion.
Stewart Parker
Stewart Parker has recently had his Individual Merit award renewed, for his contributions to catalysis research during his 25 years at ISIS.
Toby Perring
Toby is a senior scientist at ISIS, conducting a research program in condensed matter physics, and with responsibility for developing techniques and software to study dynamics in single crystals.