I did my first degree at Leicester and then a PhD with Professor Bernard Shaw at Leeds. I was a lecturer at the University of Warwick for 5 years before coming to Bristol in 1988. It doesn’t feel like I’ve been here for over 25 years but the calendar doesn’t lie.

For me it is a wonderful life as a chemistry academic, researching and teaching a subject which has always fascinated me.

I have supervised over 30 PhD students and 14 postdocs. For the group’s research, I have been awarded a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship (2001) and the Royal Society of Chemistry Awards for The Chemistry of the Noble Metals (2000) and Homogeneous Catalysis (2004).

I ran a marathon for the first time in Berlin (2006) and then in 2007 I achieved a PB (4h 8 min) in the London Marathon. I have subsequently done marathons in Berlin (2009), Paris (2010), Amsterdam (2010), Florence (2011) and Prague (2014) – getting progressively slower!