Professor Russell Cowburn is a physicist who leads a large research group in Cambridge University studying nanotechnology and its application to computers, security and cancer therapy.

In this Business Connect seminar Professor Cowburn will give a short talk describing his research at Cambridge and his experience of translating it into two businesses.

Before taking up his current post as Director of Research within the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge Russell held academic positions in Paris, Durham and Imperial College London. While his primary interest is experimental physics, he is also heavily involved in trying to start new companies to take discoveries from his lab and convert them into products; he has to-date founded two companies and is currently working on a third. For his pioneering research he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society at the age of 37 - one of the youngest in the Society. He is married to Rebecca and they have two cats: Einstein and Archimedes.