I am Chief Executive of the Humanitarian Technology Trust, and an open hardware advocate. I have significant experience in the development of precision scientific instrumentation. I have worked on a range of instrumentation from the world’s most accurate balance for measuring milligram-level masses, to automated scanning probe microscopes that can see individual atoms. One of my core projects is the OpenFlexure Microscope, which is increasing access to laboratory-grade robotic microscopes across the world. The microscope has been made or used in over 60 countries (and on every continent!), and we are now working with manufacturers to enable in-country, medically certified production of microscopes for cancer and malaria diagnosis.

I completed my PhD in Physics in 2014 at the University of Nottingham. I have since worked for the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA), the University of Maryland, and the University of Bath. Throughout my time in academia I saw an incredible amount of time spent on reinventing the wheel. Academic hardware designs are often poorly documented, poorly shared, and rarely commercialised. I became a prominent member of the open hardware community, which is promoting the free and open exchange of hardware designs. This is particularly important in the case of scientific hardware, as it protects scientists from vendor lock-in and gives them the freedom to understand and improve their instruments.

After leaving academia, I worked as a freelance engineer and continued to develop software to automate many aspects of the creation of hardware assembly instructions and to create sophisticated and automated open-source workflows for hardware development.

I am now focused on leading the Humanitarian Technology Trust, where we are working to deliver open, distributed, and locally certified technologies that strengthen global access to scientific and medical tools.