For almost 20 years, beginning in December 1996, I worked in the Theory of Condensed Matter (TCM) Group at the Cavendish Laboratory -- the physics department of the University of Cambridge. Beginning in 2010 I also worked jointly at University College, London for a few years. From 2002 until 2010 I was a Royal Society Research Fellow and for ten years also a College Lecturer at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

In late 2015, for reasons too complicated to explain, I ended up moving to Italy to become an 'independent scientist'. In practice that meant I continued to run the Apuan Alps Centre for Physics, my theoretical physics research centre and events venue in the mountain village of Vallico Sotto, Tuscany, Italy (founded in 2004) whilst simultaneously building and running an art gallery 'Keil Art Bronze' in central Florence (see here) - all whilst thinking a lot about things that are interesting to me. In September 2019, having closed the gallery, I returned to full-time independent research, and it'll be fun to see what happens next.

My research was and is principally concerned with the development of highly accurate quantum-mechanical methods useful in understanding and predicting the properties of matter, though I also have a long-standing interest in the foundations of quantum physics. I am also a specialist in massively parallel computing, and routinely develop and run calculations on some of the largest machines in the world. I am an author of over sixty scientific articles and book chapters, and have written a number of widely used international-class software programs, including the well-known and widely used quantum Monte Carlo code 'CASINO' (which I continue to develop in collaboration with my colleagues Neil Drummond and Pablo López Ríos). An experienced public speaker and teacher, I have given numerous invited talks all over the world along with various lecture courses and thousands of small-group supervisions over many years in Cambridge.

Contact Information

I do research in quantum physics from my bases in Florence and Vallico Sotto in Italy. When in academia I collaborated in particular with the groups of Richard Needs at Cambridge, Dario Alfè at UCL, and Matthew Foulkes at Imperial College.

One of my main research interests is the super-accurate quantum Monte Carlo method widely used in computational electronic structure theory; I am the principal author of the CASINO quantum Monte Carlo software, written over many years with my colleagues Neil Drummond and Pablo López Ríos and many other postdocs and students. I also have a long-standing interest in the unorthodox but highly interesting de Broglie Bohm ('pilot-wave') theory of quantum physics.

I own a 15th century monastery in Tuscany that I run as a science institute ("The Apuan Alps Centre for Physics") and events venue. For many years I have organized workshops and summer schools on various topics at this venue - see the web page for more details.

Off and on since 2001 I have organized the Electronic Structure Discussion Group, a weekly discussion forum where researchers and students in the Cambridge TCM Group (and interested colleagues in other departments) get together to present and chat about their work.

Should I ever have any free time I'm interested, in no particular order, in antique books, Etruscan archaeology, caving, climbing, and mountaineering, the Victorian explorer Richard F. Burton, old sailing ships, taxidermy, Victorian science (especially the dangerous stuff), Italian poetry, mathematical recreation, and astronomy.

• Electronic structure theory and its use in the first principles simulation of matter (condensed or otherwise). I use a mixture of quantum Monte Carlo, density functional theory and various "quantum chemistry" methods.
• Development of the theory of the quantum Monte Carlo method and our implementation of it in the Cambridge quantum Monte Carlo code "CASINO".
• Foundational issues in quantum mechanics, particularly de Broglie-Bohm pilot-wave theory.
• Practical quantum simulations based on de Broglie-Bohm pilot-wave trajectories, as implemented in my computer code "LOUIS".
• Algebraic approaches to quantum theory (with Basil Hiley) [this was an aspiration which I ended up not doing because of lack of time, but I'll keep this here because I think more people should pay attention to it].
• The relationship between quantum chemistry and theoretical physics.
• Fundamental problems in density functional theory.
• The physics of strongly-correlated systems from the point of view of first principles electronic structure theories.
• Physics education (through my conference centre).

• I was one of the organizers of a conference in Lyon in September 2002 entitled "The Diffusion Monte Carlo Method". Its homepage can be found here
• I run annual conference and summer school programs at my Institute. The ninth in the conference series "Quantum Monte Carlo in the Apuan Alps" took place in Vallico Sotto in late July 2014 followed by the ninth "Quantum Monte Carlo and the CASINO program" summer school in early August. Our first quantum foundations workshop: "21st century directions in de Broglie-Bohm theory and beyond" took place in late August 2010. More details on the TTI home page.

I am the owner of the Towler Institute, a large 16th century former monastery situated on the outskirts of a mediaeval village in the Apuan Alps national park in Northern Tuscany. It hosts my science institute (the "Apuan Alps Centre for Physics") and is also used as a general events venue. The monastery's chapel hosts scientific summer schools and workshops, plus occasional art events, and it is the ideal summer getaway for people seeking peace and inspiration for work. Follow the link above for further details.

• University of Bristol, Bristol, U.K.
• Daresbury Laboratory, Cheshire, U.K.
• Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Washington, U.S.A.
• Università di Torino, Torino, Italy (in the blue dot on this map, in fact)

• Mike and his Royal Society friends meet Jeremy Paxman on University Challenge - The Professionals (it says here). Find out how we did in Science Magazine.
• Sadly and not surprisingly, that was it.

• TCM films page
• Italian Poetry page
• Translations

• Sam's web page
• My home town
• My CV
• MG - The Classic Marque (it says here) and my favourite old car.
• How to annoy James Bond.
• Why did the Argentinian football team do so badly in World Cup 2002?
• Da Ramona

• See some of my favourite photographs which remind me of people and places that I used to know here. I created this page when I first moved to Cambridge more than 20 years ago, hence the low resolution and juvenilia.