Dean Venables is a Senior Lecturer in Physical and Environmental Chemistry at University College Cork, Ireland. He was awarded BSc and MSc degrees from Rhodes University (South Africa) and completed his PhD degree at Yale University (USA) under Prof. Charles Schmuttenmaer in 2001. His PhD research investigated the properties of liquid mixtures using ultrafast terahertz spectroscopy to probe the dynamics of water and polar solvents. He worked for three years in the National Metrology Laboratory (South Africa) and then joined University College Cork in 2003. His research focuses on atmospheric chemistry, air quality, and instrument development for quantifying trace gases and characterizing aerosols. His research interests center on developing new spectroscopic approaches to detect trace gases, and then applying these tools to answer open questions in atmospheric chemistry.