QMC Instruments Ltd Staff
Richard Wylde - Managing Director
Richard read Natural Sciences at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and then completed a PhD with Professor Derek H. Martin in the Department of Physics, at what was Queen Mary College (QMC) in London, and is now Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL.) He is Managing Director of both QMC Instruments Ltd. and its sister company, Thomas Keating Ltd.
Richard (right) with Jim Birch pictured at a meeting held to celebrate the career of Derek Martin, QMUL, May 1994.... He has a lot less hair now
Richard divides his time between his academic and business interests. He was a senior visiting research fellow at QMC for fifteen years and now holds the same post at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of St. Andrews. His research interests lie in the design of millimetre-wave and far-infrared optics and circuits for plasma fusion diagnostics, astronomy, cosmology and earth remote sensing. He is an associate scientist on ESA's Planck Mission, which was launched in May 2009 and observed very faint anisotropies in the Cosmic Background Radiation.
Richard enjoys diving in caves. The photograph above was taken immediately before entering the Devil's Eye Cave System in Gilcrist County Florida in the 1990's. He is pictured (on the right) with his then instructor, Steve Berman, who sadly died in a diving expedition some years ago. Click here to learn more about Cave Diving and his work mapping caves in the Yucatan
Richard holding the Planck HFI structure during assembly in the Cardiff University clean rooms
Ken Wood - Sales and Marketing Director
Ken graduated with a B.Sc.(Hons) in Physics and Astrophysics from Queen Mary College, University of London, and later with an M.Sc. from the Astronomy Centre at Sussex University. He has been involved in Terahertz science since it was known more commonly as “Far-Infrared and submillimetre-wave physics.” He has been with QMC Instruments Ltd. since 1983.
Ken enjoys travelling, and this is fortuitous because he sees quite a lot of the world whilst visiting QMC Instruments Ltd clients, who these days are very evenly distributed throughout the world.
Ken about to try for his first century innings ...
Ken is currently a member of the International Organising Committee of the International Conference on Infrared and Millimeter Waves and THz Electronics (IMMWTHz) conference series. In September 2007, Ken and his Cardiff University colleagues were proud to host the five hundred delegate conference, IRMMWTHz2007, at the City Hall, Cardiff. The international delegates were presumably oblivious of the happy fact that the sun shone consistently in Cardiff that week for the first time in a long while. It has not done so since!
Ken plays tennis and cricket on occasion, and jogs to stay in “reasonable” shape. He plays golf with the deluded optimism that naturally accompanies a medium handicap. If you are a potential customer and you happen to have access to particularly beautiful or famous golf courses then you might devise a way of securing a discount on QMC product prices!
His other relaxations include singing and playing guitar in a rock band. Fame and fortune as an international rock star may beckon, but Ken currently has no plans to give up the day job.
A rare joint appearance – Richard and Ken in 2004 at IRMMWTHz, Karlsruhe
Adam Woodcraft - Research and Operations Director
Following a degree and then PhD in physics at Manchester University, Adam has spread his career across various types of physics research with a common theme of getting things very cold. His first experience of cryogenics came with an undergraduate experiment which involved playing with liquid helium; he enjoyed this so much that he later married his lab partner.
His introduction to the world of Terahertz detection began while working on cooled detectors for the European Space Agency Herschel and Planck missions, now successfully doing astronomy a million miles from the Earth. This was followed by a major role on another astronomical instrument, SCUBA-2, where he led the low temperature thermal design while in the Astronomical Instrumentation Group in Cardiff. Other work on SCUBA-2 included testing the world's first 1000 pixel arrays for sub-mm astronomy.
More recently he was awarded an Advanced Research Fellowship in Scotland, splitting his time between Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities and the UK Astronomy Technology Centre in Edinburgh. His work there involved improving instrumentation in the fields of gravitational wave detection, particle physics and astronomy, again with an emphasis on experiments that need to get very cold. He moved to QMC Instruments Ltd in November 2010.
He has a particular interest in material properties relevant to cryogenic instrument design, having given various talks and published many papers on this topic.
Outside work, Adam likes travel and reading, and sometimes reading about travel.
Adam in front of the North Korean border after the IRMMW/THz conference in Busan, South Korea
Tyrone Jones - Senior Product Engineer
Tyrone read Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Glamorgan gaining a B.Sc.(Hons) in 2000. He then worked as a Research Associate in Cardiff School of Engineering for several years in the fields of microelectronics and microfabrication, before joining QMC Instruments Ltd. in 2004. Tyrone enjoys reading, walking and DIY.
Tyrone (right) and his wife Carrie attending the conference banquet at IRMMWTHz2007, Cardiff
Tyrone about to embark on a leisurely run
James Cox – Systems Engineer
James read Physics at Loughborough University gaining a B.Sc.(Hons) in 2001. He then studied for a M.Sc in Radio Astronomy at Jodrell Bank Observatory before beginning a Ph.D in Astrophysics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Cardiff University in 2003. During the course of his degree he used QMC cryostats and filters while working on THUMPER, a 200 micron photometer, In March 2005 THUMPER made observations of Jupiter and Mars using the James Clark Maxwell Telescope. He completed his thesis in August 2007 and spent a year teaching and researching before starting work for QMC Instruments Ltd. in August 2008.
James pictured in the QMC labs in Cardiff
Though several fitness and co-ordination issues have prevented James from actually playing cricket, he follows it keenly on the radio, much to the annoyance of his colleagues. James enjoys reading, jogging and attending the gym.