 He undertook his PhD in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Keele, investigating pheromones in social insects.Following his PhD he worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Organic Geochemistry Unit in the School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, where he worked with Professor Geoffrey Eglinton and Professor James Maxwell to develop GC/MS and HPLC methodologies to investigate porphyrins in crude oils and source rocks.He moved to the Department of Chemistry, University of Liverpool in 1984 to manage a biochemical mass spectrometry unit, before taking up a position as Lecturer in the School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, in 1993.