I have always had a passion for understanding how things work, even from a young age when I used to smash things with a hammer just to see what was on the inside. So when it came time to head off to uni I chose physics, studying for a degree at Keele university. When my 3 years was up I wasn’t done and so embarking upon a PhD at Sussex university in ion trap quantum computing. This was undeniably the hardest 4 years of my life, during which I built a working lab, trapped single atoms, designed and built and operated a microchip for ion trapping and grabbing a Nature comms paper with it. However, after a couple of years postdocing I was burnt out with academia and decided to get a job. So now I make pet care products for SureFlap. Not exactly what I imagined I’d end up doing but it’s good fun and nice to see products you developed in the shops.

Now I’m outside of academia I have much more time for my own interests, of which I have many! All of them revolve around making things, whether that is a nice meal, a wood carving or Nixie clock. I’m obsessive about making and spend most of my spare time making something. My greatest enjoyment comes from creating and I’m fortunate to have a job that allows me to be creative and build novel devices and solutions to problems. I’m always on the lookout for a new and interesting project, there’s just never enough time for them all!

My CV can be downloaded from here:   CV 16-1-17

Notable achievements

15/06/17 – “Nixie Bargraph Kit” Kickstarter listed as a “Project we Love”, raising £5728, 1145% of the target.
7/12/16 – “Interference” successfully 527% funded!
07/11/16 – “Interference” Kickstarter campaign listed as a “Project we Love”
28/9/16 – My first Kickstarter campaign is successfully funded, getting 737% of the target goal.
27/9/16 – My first product the Sealed Pet Bowl wins a Bronze award in the Health/Technical category in the pet product innovation of the year awards.
29/8/16 – Mentioned on the Hackaday wedsite.
20/5/15 – Speaker at the Cambridge “Pint of Science” festival.
13/5/14 – Front page feature on Instructables >12k views, for home beer brewing.
30/3/14 – Front page feature on Instructables >28k views, for Nixie bargraph clock.

Academic Publications

Fabrication and operation of a two-dimensional ion-trap lattice on a high-voltage microchip,
Nature Communications, 5:3637 (2013)
R. C. Sterling, H. Rattanasonti, S. Weidt, K. Lake, P. Srinivasan, S. C. Webster, M. Kraft and W. K. Hensinger

Increased surface flashover voltage in microfabricated devices,
Applied Physics Letters, 103, 143505 (2013)
R. C. Sterling, M. D. Hughes, C. J. Mellor and W. K. Hensinger

Versatile ytterbium ion trap experiment for operation of scalable ion-trap chips with motional heating and transition-frequency measurements. 
Physical Review A, 83 (1). 013406 (2011)
J. J. McLoughlin, A. H. Nizamani, J. D. Siverns, R. C. Sterling, M. D. Hughes, B. Lekitsch, S. Weidt and W. K. Hensinger