Peter Ratoff (1974)

Born and educated in the north-west of England, I read Physics at Oxford University and completed a PhD in Experimental Neutrino Physics at University College London. Following postdoctoral research positions at Caltech and Oxford University, I was appointed to a lectureship in particle physics at Lancaster University in 1991 and I am now a Distinguished Professor at the same institution. I served as head of the Physics Department for nearly 9 years and then spent a similar period based at Daresbury Laboratory as the Director of the Cockcroft Institute of Accelerator Science & Technology, a partnership between the universities of Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester & Strathclyde, and STFC. Earlier this year I stepped down from the Cockcroft Directorship to take up a new leadership role at Daresbury in the DUNE (Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment) detector construction factory. 
 
During my research career I have carried out experiments with neutrino beams, electron-positron colliders and hadron colliders at laboratories in Europe, the USA and Japan. I have been the principal investigator on £64M of research grants, have held various positions of responsibility in international research collaborations, have ~900 publications in peer reviewed journals and have been a co-recipient of 2 international research prizes. At Lancaster I have taught a broad range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, demonstrated in experimental and computational labs and have supervised 11 PhD students. I have also served on numerous national and international advisory committees and have helped to organise many conferences and workshops.