Neal Skipper obtained his PhD in 1987 from the Department of Physics at Bristol University, for research into the alkali metal ions in water using neutron and X-ray scattering. He was postdoctoral research assistant in the Department of Earth Sciences, Oxford University, from 1987-1991. During this post he conducted theoretical and experimental studies of clay hydration, and developed models for these systems which are still widely used today. In 1991 he was elected to the Sir Henry Jones Research Fellowship at Pembroke College, Cambridge. At this time he studied the fundamental nature of the hydrophobic interaction in simple apolar solutes using computational techniques. He was appointed Lecturer in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at UCL in 1994, Reader in 1999 and Professor in 2005. His current research interests include: graphites and nanocarbons, electronic liquids, hydrogen storage, clay-fluid interactions, aqueous solutions, and complex fluids including asphaltenes. He has published around 75 peer reviewed papers on a wide variety of topics, and has an h-index of 25. He is currently Chair of the International Steering Committee for the new NIMROD neutron diffraction beamline at the ISIS Facility Second Target Station, and is a member of the EPSRC Peer Review College.