This award is presented to researchers whose work is anticipated to have a major impact in the field of surface analysis. It is intended as a recognition of high quality independent research at an early career stage. It is not restricted to members of the UK Surface Analysis Forum (formerly the UK ESCA Users Group and SIMS Users Forum). The award is named after John Vickerman, the founding Chairman of the SIMS Users Forum, in recognition of his pioneering work in SIMS and his leading role in UK surface and interface science.
| 2025 | Sebastiaan Van Nuffel (Maastricht University) – View Citation |
| 2025 | Mark C Biesinger (Surface Science Western) – View Citation |
| 2024 | Naoko Sano (Ionoptika Ltd) – View Citation |
| 2022 | Gustavo F. Trindade (National Physical Laboratory) – View Citation |
| 2021 | David Morgan (Cardiff University) – View Citation |
| 2020 | Jonathan Counsell (Kratos Analytical) – View Citation |
| 2019 | Rasmus Havelund (National Physical Laboratory) |
| 2018 | Andrew Hook (The University of Nottingham) |
| 2016 | Melissa Passarelli (National Physical Laboratory) |
| 2015 | Tom Scott (University of Bristol) |
| 2013 | Mischa Zelzer (The University of Nottingham) |
Citations (Where available)
2025: Dr. Sebastiaan Van Nuffel
Dr. Sebastiaan Van Nuffel has built an extensive track in mass spectrometry imaging, specifically time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS), and its application in biological and medical research. Sebastiaan obtained his PhD from the University of Nottingham and has successfully taken on a range of challenges in surface analysis at an early stage of his career working in several internationally renowned research institutes. Sebastiaan has been an early adopter of machine learning in SIMS with important contributions to multivariate analysis of 3D images of neuronal cells and the application of classification methods to identify disease biomarkers. He now holds a tenured Assistant Professor role at Maastricht University. His independent research has instigated an ambitious programme of work at Maastricht which has garnered international attention and will continue to impact the field of surface analysis.
As a research group leader, Sebastiaan is a mentor to his PhD students, colleagues and other early career researchers. As a widely regarded expert he is always willing to share his expertise and help educate new generations of scientists, for example, providing lectures at the European and North American SIMS meetings and IUVSTA workshop. Sebastiaan actively engages with the community by sitting in the Scientific Committee and Advisory board of SIMS Europe. He welcomes others with a characteristic enthusiasm and a genuine interest in their research. He is a determined researcher with enormous future potential and it gives us great pleasure to award him the 2025 Vickerman Prize.
Mark is an internationally recognised expert in XPS and has several seminal and highly-cited publications in the field which focus on improvements in both sample analysis and data interpretation techniques, particularly in the analysis of transition metals. His recent work on understanding the nature of adventitious carbon and its use in charge correction procedures has garnered international attention. Mark also authors and maintains the X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) Reference Pages, a repository of techniques, tips and reference materials designed to help XPS users worldwide. This valuable training and reference resource is of great importance to many XPS practitioners and especially useful for those who are new to the field. Mark is author or co-author of over 80 peer-reviewed publications, with a Google Scholar h-index of 40 and circa 30,000 citations, including six papers each with more than 1,000 citations, highlighting the broad impact of his work in the surface analysis field.
Mark joined Surface Science Western in 1992, first as a Chemistry graduate student examining the reactions of toxic gases on military grade charcoal filters, and then, in 1995, as a full-time Research Scientist. He has extensive experience with SSW’s wide range of surface analysis and materials characterization techniques including 30+ years of experience operating and maintaining various XPS, SEM/EDX, optical microscopes, and static and ToF-SIMS instruments.
In 2020, Mark was awarded Fellow of the International Association of Advanced Materials, in 2021, the Vebleo Scientist Award, and in 2022, the American Vacuum Society – Applied Surface Science Division Peter M.A. Sherwood Mid-Career Professional Award. Mark was also listed on Stanford’s World’s Top 2% Scientists List (2018-2023). Mark also serves as Secretary-Treasurer for the Surface Science Division of the Chemical Institute of Canada. It is anticipated that Mark’s work will have far-reaching impact for surface analysis practitioners for many years to come and thus is a more than worthy candidate for the Vickerman Prize
Dr Naoko Sano has made important contributions to surface analysis by both ToF-SIMS and XPS. During her PhD she developed PCA of ToF-SIMS spectra and images from complex industrial samples to a new level of precision, making significant contributions to a major technological issue. During her time at Newcastle University, she divided her time between applied research and providing an XPS service. In the latter role she established an “across-the-world” system of remote operation. She joined Nara Women’s University as an associate professor in 2016, but in 2019 she returned to the UK to join Ionoptika Ltd where she is currently heavily involved in the development of water clusters as a primary ion source for ToF-SIMS. Naoko is a great supporter of the surface analysis community and a regular attender at UKSAF, ECASIA and AVS Meetings.
Dr. Gustavo Trindade is a talented early career researcher who exhibits that important mix of skills including scientific curiosity, a scholarly approach, technique expertise, a sharp analytical mind, and excellent communication skills thereby setting him apart as a future leader. The evidence of this is clearly seen in the quality of his publication output and the number of papers in prestigious journals that have depended on his contribution including; Luo et. al. Science 2018, Kotowska et. al. Nat. Comms. 2020 and Starr et. al. PNAS 2022.
Since joining NPL in 2021 he has made important contributions as evidenced from his quality journal publications including Analytical Chemistry and ACS Materials and Interfaces. Gustavo made an excellent contribution to Martin Seah’s final paper “OrbiSIMS metrology part I: Optimisation of the target potential and collision cell pressure” recently published in the SIA special volume. He dived deeper into understanding the mechanisms by studying the effects of ion kinetic energy and he discovered new phenomena that he is now investigating in more detail as this could confer important new analytical advantage. “I know that Martin would have greatly appreciated this attention to metrology detail.” – Prof. Ian Gilmore.
Dr Trindade is expert in multivariate analytical methods and this gives him an important edge in his research being able to advance from data to understanding more rapidly than most can. He has a strong community spirit and advocates multivariate data analysis and visualisation through web-seminars and his popular software package, simsMVA, (Trindade et. al. Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems 2018) is publicly available. This has excellent impact with 148 registered users from academia (79%), research institutes (10%) and industry (11%), across 22 countries all over the world. It has also been used in multiple PhD theses.
David has been a recognised expert in XPS and surface analysis for over 20 years. From almost the start of his career he has been the lynchpin of the Cardiff Catalysis Institute’s analytical facilities and in recent years has played a national role as the technical manager of the EPSRC’s national Research Facility in PES. It’s no exaggeration to say that the success of HarwellXPS could not have happened without Dave’s knowledge and guidance. To date, he has contributed to over 200 papers in catalysis, surface chemistry and surface analysis with his paper on the XPS analysis of ruthenium compounds still one of the most highly cited papers in the Wiley journal Surface and Interface Analysis where he also sits on the advisory editorial panel and guest edited a volume with papers from the UKSAF golden anniversary meeting. David has played a prominent role in encouraging young scientists in the area of surface analysis within Cardiff and further afield delivering training courses with a very approachable attitude to sharing and accruing knowledge. This enthusiasm has underpinned the development of the Harwellxps.guru web site which aims to curate all the disparate resources on XPS throughout the world. David has been a strong supporter of the UK surface analysis community taking active roles in UKSAF, BVC and BSI.
Dr Counsell is at the forefront of efforts within Kratos to improve the capabilities of XPS instruments and to provide users with reliable methods and data. Jonathan was instrumental in establishing a calibration scheme for the silver X-ray source which is compatible with that of the normal aluminium source. This enables users to simply and easily compare data taken using two widely different X-ray energies, providing insight into the depth distribution of chemical species. Through active collaborations with others, he has extended the application of argon cluster sputtering to metallic nitrides and, using sample rotation, thick organic films. He contributes extensively to the surface analysis community through his participation in interlaboratory studies, as an ISO technical expert and was recently elected as a member of the AVS Applied Surface Science Division. .