Dr Ross Gillanders

Founder

Dr Ross Gillanders has over two decades’ worth of optical chemical sensor development for water quality, food packaging, and explosives. He has worked across academia and industry on applying sensor technologies in the real world, working closely with end-users to understand the environment. In 2019 he founded Lightwater Sensors, a spin-out company for water quality sensors which won the Converge Kickstart Challenge in 2020 and the Scottish Wild Card EDGE award in 2021.

Based on Landmine-Sensing Technology

Dr Gillanders is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Physics & Astronomy at the University of St Andrews, which he joined in 2013. He started working on explosives sensors for landmine detection as part of a large European project, and continued working in this field including developing explosives sensor for use in aqueous media. This led to investigating these novel materials for a wide range of water pollutants, including pesticides and pharmaceuticals.