About

This is the personal website of Hywel Owen.

My present job is as head of the Accelerator Physics Group at STFC Daresbury Laboratory, part of the national Accelerator Science and Technology Centre that leads the UK’s development of particle accelerators. Our STFC lab is part of UKRI, the UK’s principal organisation for research. At Daresbury we develop and construct many of the particle accelerators and subsystems used by UK researchers, with a focus around future national infrastructures such as the UK Free-Electron Laser. Our main test facility is CLARA, where we are developing the future electron accelerator technologies for these infrastructures.

Our group – and ASTeC as a whole – is proud to be part of the Cockcroft Institute, one of Europe’s largest research collaborations in particle accelerator science and technology.

My previous role was at Manchester University, where I  was also a member of the Cockcroft Institute. During that time I mainly worked on technologies for particle therapy and future light sources; I assisted the development of the Christie proton therapy centre, and helped develop the case and design for their unique research beamline now used for groundbreaking research into future method of rapid proton therapy. Latterly, I headed the postgraduate education programme within the Cockcroft Institute, and with colleagues co-wrote a new textbook on particle accelerator science and technology for use by graduates.

I’m passionate about using particle accelerators to make the world a better place, and have an interest in the history of science from the 1930s onwards.

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