P. R. Hobson

I was born and educated in Edinburgh gaining my BSc in Physics from Edinburgh University in 1981. I then moved to London to study for a PhD at University College London where I worked on an experiment at CERN measuring the charm production cross-section using a holographic bubble chamber. From 1984 to 1986 I was a Research Fellow at University College London before my appointment as a Lecturer in Physics at Brunel University. I held two senior positions at Brunel University within the School/College of Engineering. I was a Deputy Head of School with responsibility for the strategic development and successful delivery of, all the undergraduate programmes and their quality assurance. From August 2016 until June 2019 I was the Head of the Department of Electronic & Computer Engineering. In August 2019 I was appointed as a Professor of Physics at Queen Mary University of London. I retired and became an Emeritus Professor on 1 August 2025. I have over 30 years’ experience as an experimental physicist, with a sustained track record of gaining research grants from a variety of funding sources (STFC, EPRC, NERC, EU, Leverhulme) and a significant publication record in a variety of international peer-reviewed journals. I have working in two large international collaborations at CERN (OPAL at Large Electron-Positron collider and CMS at the Large Hadron Collider) playing a significant role, over a period of nearly 25 years, in the development, construction and commissioning of the endcap electromagnetic calorimeter for CMS and searching for rare Standard Model processes involving the top quark. I have also worked in European collaborations in the areas of underwater holographic recording of plankton for ocean science (HOLOMAR), large-scale distributed computing for sensor systems (GRIDCC), and infrastructures for detectors at accelerators (AIDA-2020). I have been a member of an STFC oversight committee and am an experienced reviewer of grant applications from STFC, EPSRC and some international funding agencies (USA, Canada, Germany). I was a member of the local or national organizing committee of the 12 of the 13 Position Sensitive Detectors conferences which commenced in 1986. I am a Chartered Physicist, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, a Member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, a member of the European Optical Society, a member of Optica, and a Fellow of the RSA.