Simon Coles

Simon Coles obtained his BSc and PhD in structural systematics and molecular modelling at the University of Wales, Cardiff before a PDRA appointment with the Royal Institution to build the world’s first dedicated small molecule single crystal beamline, 9.8, at the Daresbury synchrotron.

In 1998 Simon moved to Southampton to establish a new laboratory and manage the National Crystallography Service. Simon became Director of the National Crystallography Service in 2009, Director of the UK Physical Sciences Data-science Service in 2019 and is now a lead for the Physical Science Data Infrastructure (www.psdi.ac.uk). Simon is an author on over 1000 papers supporting chemical synthesis, in many areas of structural chemistry and in digital/chemical information. He is one of the world’s most prolific chemical crystallographers, ranking as the 20th highest all-time contributor to the Cambridge Structural Database