Born 1964 in Scotland. Studied Physics in Edinburgh (BSc) and at the University of Cambridge (PhD 1991). Royal Society University Research Fellow in Cambridge (until 1997) and Birmingham (1997-2001). Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at University of St. Andrews since 2001. Visiting scholarships and professorships at Centro Atómico de Bariloche, Argentina (1995), Stanford University, USA (2003), Kyoto University, Japan (2004), Cornell University, USA (2006), National Institute for Material Science, Tsukuba, Japan (2009), Salerno University, Italy (2009) and Stanford University (2010). Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids since December 2012.