Professor Durkan is a Professor of Nanoengineering Science at the University of Cambridge, and is the deputy head of the Engineering department, in charge of all undergraduate teaching – this is over 10% of the university of Cambridge’s undergraduates. He obtained his degree and PhD in Physics from Trinity College Dublin during which time he designed and constructed the first scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM) in the country and made significant advances in our understanding of the mechanisms behind image formation in such systems. He then spent a year in Konstanz, Germany working in collaboration with ZEISS on the construction of a commercial microscope system. In 1997 he moved to the University of Cambridge, initially as a research associate in the Nanoscale Science group, and since 2000, as a faculty member. During this time he has led a research group consisting of around 15 members, been head of the Nanoscience centre for four years (2009-2010 and 2015-2016), published over 100 papers, given over 100 talks, written a successful textbook on Nanoelectronics, and developed several scanning-probe microscopes and new measurement techniques. He has also just published a popular science book on Nanotechnology for the layperson, and is currently completing a textbook on the fundamentals of circuit analysis for electrical engineers. Colm has secured funding from and collaborated with several leading companies as well as government funding agencies, to the tune of over £3 Million in the past few years. He lectures and teaches in electronics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics and nanotechnology. He is on the editorial board of Ultramicroscopy and Imaging & Microscopy, and is a fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, the Institute of Physics and the Institution of Engineering and Technology.