On leaving school in 1963 I worked as a technician in the plankton section of the marine fisheries laboratory in Aberdeen, completing an honours degree at Aberdeen University betwen 1972 and 1973, before moving to The Plymouth Marine Laboratory in 1977. In 1999 I transferred across to the MBA and was awarded a PhD in 2000 by Plymouth University.

My career has been research on a wide range of plankton groups, studying distribution, vertical migration, feeding, digestion, biochemistry etc., much of it in relation to modelling fish survival. I have also produced identification guides for European and Indian Ocean zooplankton.

I am now retired, but do contract plankton analysisis for the MBA and also involve myself in plankton training and education projects at all levels. I am currently doing a lot of plankton photography, in preparaton for a photographic identification guide book of European zooplankton.