Since 2005, Adrian has led the Applied Optics Group in the University of Kent (and continues to do so), developing OCT both as a methodology and with applications across a wide range of fields from clinical practice to forensic sciences. He has supervised more than 30 postgraduate and visiting researchers during his career at Kent, many of whom have gone on to lead in their fields. Adrian’s leadership in (and of) the community has been widely recognised through editorships, high profile lectures and awards including an ERC Advanced Grant, 2010-2015, the order Coroana Romaniei (Order of the Crown), Royal House of Romania, 2017 and Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, 2015. He is a Fellow of IOP, Optica and SPIE, a Board member of 5 journals and has been in more than 70 conference organisation committees, out of which chaired or cochaired 17, He has been one of the 8 elected Vice-Presidents of the International Commission of Optics (ICO), 2017-2020 and Chair of the Committee awarding IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Optics, 2017 – 2021. Since 2021, he is an associate secretary of the ICO.
His work combining OCT/SLO with adaptive optics for the retina has led to commercial collaborations to produce licensed products that are estimated to have benefited around 5 million patients worldwide. More recently he has pioneered a new processing paradigm for spectral domain optical coherence tomography which allows imaging with unprecedented speed, with direct clinical applications. Adrian’s prolific research efforts have made him the author with the highest number of publications across the University for the last 9 years running (according to SciVal) and he is also the UK author with the highest number of OCT outputs. Adrian was Lead Guest Editor of a special feature in Biomedical Optics Express, a leading gold open access journal of Optica, to celebrate 20 years from the invention of the OCT/SLO at the University of Kent.
He has also led a series of European funded training networks which bring academics and industry together in the training Early Career Researchers. These training networks highlight his continued passion for training, mentoring, and developing the careers of young researchers, indeed some of his former students and younger collaborators have themselves established international research groups. The time and dedication with which he undertakes such training and mentoring are an exemple to the community.