After completing a PhD in Organic Chemistry and Mass Spectrometry at the University Pierre et Marie Curie, in Paris followed by a postdoctoral position at Warwick University, Dominique took a position as a senior scientific officer at the formerly named Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment (CBDE) at Porton Down where she established a proteomics capability. CBDE is now part of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, DSTL, where Dominique currently holds the role of Chief for the Chemical and Biological Sense capability. In this role she provides technical leadership to Dstl teams and advice to UK government, security and defence stakeholders.
Dominique’s experiences helped her develop the knowledge and relationships needed for this role and to ensure Dstl research is exploitable and aligned with stakeholders’ needs, and supports the generation of sensing technology that has a practical application for defence and security needs.
Recent career highlights have been the delivery of critical in-service military equipment for Chemical and Biological Sense, making a real difference to customer capability. She was recently awarded a visiting professorship at the University of Hertfordshire.
This presentation aims to provide some background to the challenges of placing a detection equipment in the hands of military users. Specifically it offers a perspective of the environments and tasks that UK Forces have to deal with and how these have to evolve when augmented by the threat of the use of chemical or biological hazardous materials.
Some conclusions on what a successful operational sensor looks like are being discussed.
