Catalogue of Possibilities / Supervisors

Dr Mark Scullion

Working with partners in other disciplines to develop photonic chips for a variety of applications: sensing, medical diagnostics, unknown substance identification, light delivery, optical forces and more...

Lecturer in Electronic and Photonic Devices

James Watt School of Engineering

Research interests:

Sensors, Medical diagnostics, Nanofabrication, Photonic circuits, Laser writing, Microfluidics, Raman, Optical forces, Light

Research fields:

Biosensors, Nanofabrication, Medical diagnostics, Femtosecond laser inscription, Photonic circuits, Microfluidics, Optical forces and trapping, Photonic crystals, Waveguides, Antibiotic susceptibility testing, Raman spectroscopy, Simulations

Mission Priority Areas

Why do you want to join the DiveIn community?

My research has always been driven by the desire to help people in life and in other fields of interest, and during my career I have had the great pleasure to work with physicists, engineers, microbiologists, medical professionals, computer scientists and marine biologists. I love problem solving and I am particularly interested in working with researchers in other disciplines to help solve their problems, obtain samples and develop exciting new ideas and applications of chip-scale photonic devices. DiveIn CDT would give me the opportunity to meet researchers in other fields to develop exciting new proposals at the interface between disciplines, as well as develop my group's size and portfolio through the recruitment of PhD students.

Personal profile:

I am passionate about helping researchers in other disciplines solve problems and mysteries, miniaturize systems or come up with new ideas that tackle global issues. My main expertise is in the design, fabrication, testing and application of nanophotonic devices such as waveguides, photonic crystals, resonators, interferometers and more.

I have used such devices mostly for the creation of biosensors or point-of-care medical diagnostic devices, and have worked in both academic and industry orientated research environments. For example in the past I have detected proteins and biochemicals for micro and marine biologists as well as for security applications, and bacteria and their response to antibiotics for GPs and the NHS. I am skilled in simulation, cleanroom fabrication, chemical functionalization and building laser testing setups as well as the use of femtosecond lasers to anneal and fabricate 3D photonic and microfluidic structures.

I have projects with people in Computing Science and Quantum Circuits but would love to develop projects with researchers in other sciences for example environment, microbiology, marine, space, quantum, medicine and chemistry (even history and archeology if it was possible as I love reading about it in my own time!). I am always open to new ideas, collaborations, problems and directions. As a supervisor I pay close attention to details, like to help in the lab, cut through jargon and explain things intuitively and meet with my students regularly being as approachable as possible. I treat everyone equally no matter their background, as I believe you should treat others as you would like to be treated yourself.

My children are of mixed race (Scottish/Asian) so this is particularly important to me. Outside of work I love books, board games and have regularly trained in Taekwondo for several years.

https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/engineering/staff/markscullion/