Mark Welland

Prof. Mark E. Welland FRS FREng is the head of The Nanoscience Centre at Cambridge University. He started his career in nanotechnology at IBM Research, Yorktown Heights, U.S., where he was part of the team that developed one of the first scanning tunneling microscopes.

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Upon moving to Cambridge in 1985 he set up the first tunneling microscopy group in the UK in collaboration with Prof. John Pethica. Currently the Nanoscale Science Laboratory at Cambridge researches into a number of aspects of nanotechnology ranging from sensors for medical applications to understanding and controlling the properties of nanoscale structures and devices.

In a recent award by the UK Research Councils Prof. Welland has been made Director of an Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration in nanotechnology that, along with a purpose-built facility, represents an investment of $28 million for nanotechnology research at Cambridge. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Institute of Physics journal Nanotechnology, established in 1990, and, along with many other contributions at an International level, co-chairs the recently established Co-operative Research Initiative in Nanotechnology (CORINT) between the UK and Japan with Prof. Hiroyuki Sakaki of the University of Tokyo. In 2002 his contributions to nanotechnology research were recognised through his election to Fellowships of the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering.

He is also on the advisory board of Seraphima Ventures - a venture capital firm focusing mainly on nanotechnology startup companies.