Rate My Professor David McGloin

Professor David McGloin holds a Personal Chair and serves as Head of the School of Natural and Computing Sciences at the University of Aberdeen, having joined the institution in September 2022. He earned his MSci (Hons) in Laser Physics and Optoelectronics in 1997 and a PhD in Physics in 2001, both from the University of St Andrews. After completing his doctorate, he worked briefly at the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory on optical imaging technologies. In 2002, he returned to the University of St Andrews as a postdoctoral research fellow focusing on cold atom physics. The following year, 2003, he received the Royal Society University Research Fellowship to pioneer holographic optical trapping and beam shaping techniques at St Andrews. In 2007, McGloin joined the University of Dundee as a Lecturer, advancing through roles including Head of Physics and Associate Dean for Research in the School of Science and Engineering. From 2018, he was Chair and Director of Research Programs in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Technology Sydney.

McGloin's research specializes in applications of optics, encompassing optical trapping and manipulation, advanced microscopy, single-pixel imaging, and Raman spectroscopy, with significant contributions to biomedical sciences, environmental sciences particularly aerosol analysis, terahertz beam shaping, and microfluidics. His expertise spans photonics, optical physics, biophotonics, physical chemistry, and biophysical science. Notable publications include 'Exploiting Scattering-Based Point Spread Functions for Snapshot 5D and Modality-Switchable Lensless Imaging' (2025), 'Three-Dimensional Trapping Dynamics of Aerosols Using Laguerre-Gaussian Vortex Beams' (2024), 'Temporal compressive edge imaging enabled by a lensless diffuser camera' (2024), 'Roadmap for optical tweezers' (2023), 'Trapped aerosol sizes under fiber-based counterpropagation optical trapping' (2023), 'Dual beam optical fiber traps for aerosols with angular deviation' (2022), and 'Single-Pixel Diffuser Camera' (2021). His scholarly impact is evidenced by over 7,400 Scopus citations across 95 articles and numerous conference contributions. As a leader in optical physics, McGloin's work has advanced techniques in optical tweezers and related fields, influencing both academic research and interdisciplinary applications.