Steve attended LU from 2010-15, earning a First-Class Honours degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering alongside a Diploma in Industrial Studies. Summer placements during this time produced academic outputs and led him to pursue a research-focused career.
In 2015, Steve began a PhD under Paul Lepper and Simon Pomeroy, pioneering the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to deploy underwater acoustic transducers (hydrophones) for environmental monitoring. His work also included deploying underwater acoustic recorders in high tidal flow environments, developing simulated Acoustic Deterrent Devices (ADDs), and conducting international drone operations in Uganda, the Maldives, and the British Indian Ocean Territory.
In 2021, he joined Space Park Leicester as a Research Associate within the air quality group, leading the electronics, control, and data systems for a Multi-Angle Polarimeter (MAP). The system was successfully deployed in airborne campaigns over Liverpool, North Wales, and Manchester in 2024.
Steve also took over leadership of a drone lab in 2022, managing operations, projects, and commercial activities, and became authorised to operate drones in the UK “specific category” in 2025. Alongside this, he collaborated with D-Orbit on distributed space-based computing, using containerised workflows for on-demand image processing.
In 2024, he served as interim project manager for the CO2SAT mission, coordinating an international team to define requirements and mission parameters for a satellite constellation planned for launch in 2027–28.
He then contributed to the REALM project, reducing machine learning algorithm size by 50% while maintaining performance, demonstrating real-time applications such as wildfire detection and traffic monitoring on drone platforms. He also developed two multispectral training datasets from this work.
In 2026, Steve returned to LU to research the effectiveness of bubble curtains in reducing underwater noise from human activities.
Steve’s current research is looking into the efficacy of bubble curtains, for underwater noise abatement from anthropogenic sources including piling, construction and during unexploded ordnance removal. He is keen to develop collaboration in and around this area (including the use of drones), along with commercialising research outputs to fund further research in the area.
- Meng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Loughborough University, 2015)
- Diploma in Industrial Studies (DIS) (Loughborough University, 2015)
- Awarded the David Goodson Prize for best final year project with an environmental theme (Loughborough University, 2015)
- Doctor of Philosophy in assessing the Feasibility of Using Unmanned Aerial Systems for Environmental Monitoring of the Marine Environment (Loughborough University, 2021)
- General Visual Line of Sight Certificate (GVC, Drone Licence)
- A2 Certificate of Competency (A2 CofC, Drone Licence)
- Member of the IET (MIET)
- Honorary Fellow in the School of Physics and Astronomy (University of Leicester, 2026