Paul Ewart，obtained a BSc and PhD in Physics from Queen's University Belfast and then was an （SERC） Advanced Fellow at the Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College of Science and Technology in London. In 1979 he moved to the Physics Department, Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford University and as a Tutor and Fellow of Worcester College. He has been a Royal Academy of Engineering Senior Research Fellow, a Visiting Fellow at the Joint Institute of Laboratory Astrophysics and Visiting Professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder, USA, a CNRS visiting Fellow at the Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris and a William Evans Visiting Fellow at the University of Otago, New Zealand. His research work has centred on using lasers to study atomic and molecular physics, quantum optics and nonlinear spectroscopy. His current research includes interdisciplinary applications of laser spectroscopy to combustion and environmental physics, He was Professor of Physics and formerly Head of the Department of Atomic and Laser Physics at Oxford University.