Andy Ward

Dr Andy Ward is the Division Head of the CLF’s Lasers for Science Facility. After an MSc in Colloid and Surface Science he obtained his PhD a Bristol University studying polymerisation kinetics using light scattering. He worked for short periods on surfactant formulation at Unilever Research and DERA (now DSTL) before joining the CLF in 2000. Here he developed the optical trapping facility which progressed from capturing polymer beads in solution to acquiring the Raman spectra of micro-droplets levitated in air. Laser capture is now routinely used in the facility for biological, material and environmental research. Andy has also been keen to exploit this technology across the Harwell Campus performing experiments at Diamond Light Source, ISIS and RAL Space. Andy is a named author on 90 papers.