I am an experienced and successful academic scientist and leader, with more than twenty years of research experience. In leadership, I have strong governance experience, mainly in the not-for-profit sector, together with extensive management experience in an academic setting. I am a long-standing Board Member of the Otago Museum and have been Chair of the Board since early 2019. As Director of the Dodd-Walls Centre (2015 - 2023) I led a national Centre of Research Excellence which encomapsses some 50 academics across six universities in New Zealand spanning the fields of physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer science and engineering. The Centre has about 130 graduate students at any time, graduating about 40 p.a. Our annual reports are available from the Dodd-Walls Centre website. A large part of my role as Director involved liaison with New Zealand industry to forge the partnerships essential for the application of our science and the benefit of our highly skilled graduates (over 50% of whom go directly to employment within a New Zealand commercial setting).Until the end of September 2024, as well as my academic role as an active physics research scientist and university teacher, I was a Departmental Science Advisor with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, including a period as Acting Chief Science Advisor from the end of February to end of June 2023. This role encompassed science advice to the Ministry and liaison between the Ministry and research sector, providing a voice in to government for the research community and support for that community in accessing appropriate channels in MBIE.A member of the Institute of Directors in New Zealand, I have completed several governance courses including the Director Development Programme and their flagship Company Directors Course.My publication data can be found through Orcid i.d. 0000-0003-4923-0141