Dr Steve Welch Chief Executive Officer ESP-KTN

Steve joined UCL in 1987 working in the electronics group at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory.  A long career at UCL followed, including hardware and software design for advanced instrumentation used on spacecraft for NASA, ESA and ISAS.  This culminated in Steve’s directorship of the UCL Centre for Advanced Instrumentation, and including teaching (post-graduate and commercial) and research in instrumentation and Systems Engineering.

In 2001 Steve expanded his natural flair for ‘technology translation’ into work for the Smart Optics Faraday Partnership.  For the next several years Steve retained an interest in various initiatives that were effective at connecting universities and companies together including the Photonics Knowledge Transfer Network.

With the optimisation of the Knowledge Transfer Networks that started in 2009, Steve took the decision to jump ship from UCL and set up, with Trevor Cross, ESP Central Ltd as a special purpose company to help the UK’s underpinning technology sectors make a bigger impact through effective collaborations. ESP Central Ltd currently holds the grant from the Technology Strategy Board to run the ‘Electronics, Sensors, Photonics Knowledge Transfer Network’, of which Steve is the CEO.