Professor David Sampson is the Vice-Provost, Research & Innovation, at the University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom and head of the Optical+Biomedical Engineering Laboratory, Department of Electrical, Electronic & Computer Engineering, University of Western Australia (UWA), Perth, Australia. Previously, David was Director of the Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation & Analysis at UWA.

David has nearly thirty years’ research experience in photonics, optics, and microscopy, and applications in communications and biomedicine. He is an authority in optical coherence tomography, with several main interests. These include the microscope-in-a-needle, which targets surgical and biopsy guidance, for which he was awarded the IEEE Distinguished Lecturer Award, and several other prizes. Another main interest is optical elastography, the micro-scale imaging of mechanical properties of tissue, mainly directed towards breast cancer tumour margin detection. Both these areas are undergoing commercialisation through spin-off companies. Another main interest is in developing optical coherence tomography angiography and lymphangiography as novel tools to assess health conditions.

David is heavily involved in the global optics & photonics community, serving as Director of the SPIE – The International Society for Optics & Photonics (2017-2019), and is a fellow of the optics societies, SPIE and OSA, and the electrical engineering society, IEEE. He serves on various society committees and editorial boards, and regularly organises and chairs conferences.