Professor Peter Hobson, BSc PhD CPhys FInstP MIET FRSA

Profile

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 and was the Head of the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences until 2023.

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 am currently a member of the nuSTORM and ITRF/LhARA collaborations.

I 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 first ten Position Sensitive Detectors conferences commencing in 1986 and also the 12th (2021) and 13th (2023).

I am a Chartered Physicist, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, a Member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, a Member of Optica and a Fellow of the RSA.

Research

Research Interests:

See Peter Hobson’s research profile pages including details of research interests, publications, and live grants.