Shaun joined the RSE team in December 2024. He completed his PhD in Computational Chemistry at Aberystwyth University as part of the Solar Research Group in collaboration with the ExoMol Group at University College London. During his PhD, he developed two data sets, known as linelists, predicting the emission spectra of the diatomic molecules Strontium Hydride (SrH) and Barium Hydride (BaH). These linelists were generated using computational methods based on first principles and further refined with experimental spectroscopic data. During this time he developed experience in electronic structure theory and computational chemistry methods (MCSCF and MRCI).
In July 2023, he joined the Hill Research Group at the University of Sheffield, where he contributed to the development of the BasisOpt package for basis set optimisation and developed a machine learning model for predicting molecule-specific basis sets.