Jim is a Professor of Nanotechnology in the School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering and the Director of the new NIBEC (Nanotechnology and Integrated Bioengineering Centre) where he has over 70 researchers.

Specific interests address thin film deposition and characterisation of advanced materials and a wide range of micro-sensor and coating systems. New work is studying dense plasmas and ways of deriving carbon sensing elements via nanotubes with functionalised surfaces for the immobilisation of bio-fluids. He has over three hundred publications and achieved outstanding paper awards at conferences in Japan and Europe as well as being honoured as an invited speaker at ten International Conferences.

He has set up formal collaborations with Cambridge, Surrey, Nanyang, North Carolina State University, the National University of Taiwan and various EU universities.