General Trustee: Professor John Dainton FRS CPhys FInstP FRSA

John is an experimental particle physicist. Since graduating from Oxford, his research has followed his interest in using established probes of what we now understand to be the visible, but not dark, matter in the Universe – hadronic matter.

For nearly 50 years, he has pursued interactions at high energy of electrons and photons with the simplest atomic nucleus, protons. Throughout, he has interacted synergistically with theorists as the Standard Model of sub-nuclear physics has been established.

Recognition of his contributions has come with the award of the Max Born Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics and the German Physical Society (1999) and election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society (2002). Presently his experiments are at two overseas laboratories, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) Hamburg and CERN Geneva.

His career in research has defined where he has worked. Postdoctoral work was at the Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire. This has been followed by academic positions in the physics departments at Glasgow, then the University of Liverpool and, since 2017, Lancaster University.

During his time at Glasgow and Liverpool, he also spent about 20 years on leave working at the CERN laboratory in Geneva and DESY.

Whilst the Sir James Chadwick Professor of Physics at Liverpool, in 2004 he initiated with colleagues the Cockcroft Institute for Accelerator Science and Technology at Daresbury as a joint laboratory and university venture.

The institute flourishes now as an internationally recognised centre for cutting-edge developments in sub-atomic particle acceleration and beam delivery. These developments have led to technological applications both in fundamental science and in industry and healthcare.