Having completed a PhD on dinoflagellate ecology at the University of Westminster (London, UK) and IFREMER (Brest, France), Ian worked for the Algobank culture collection at the University of Caen before moving to the Roscoff Marine Station in 2007. Along with development of the RCC over the last 15 years, Ian has been involved in research focussing mainly on haptophytes, including taxonomy, ecology and evolution.