Dr Alexandre Lewalle

Options:      Print view

Editor profile

Having completed my PhD research on the electronic behaviour of small-scale semiconductors, I am presently applying my skills as a physicist to research on biological systems at the molecular scale. In the past I have also gained research experience in nuclear physics (at the Weizman Institute in Israel) and particle physics (CERN), before specializing in different aspects of nanotechnology.

With this exposure to a broad spectrum of scientific fields, I am comfortable reading and editing scientific literature outside my own speciality: I have enough background to understand the principles and jargon in a scientific text, while retaining the "innocence" of a lay reader. I have accumulated a number of publications in peer-reviewed research journals and understand the requirements of scientific writing and of clearly presented quantitative data. I have also experience as a lecturer and as a writer of articles for non-specialist scientific audiences. I am an active member of St Thomas's Hospital Research Ethics Committee, where my task is to review research proposals and ensure they are coherently and clearly presented to research participants. I am also undergoing further formal training as an editor.

I have prepared papers for publication in both Word and LaTeX.

I am perfectly bilingual in French and English, and have a good working knowledge of Spanish.

Selected publications

"A physicist in a foreign land", Lateral Thoughts column, Physics World, August 2006.

"Reconciling estimates of the working stroke of skeletal muscle myosin from optical-trap experiments with those from crystal structures", with J. Sleep and D. Smith, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 103 No. 5, 2006, pp. 1278-82.

"Optical tweezers: application to the study of motor proteins", with W. Steffen and J. Sleep, Chapter A.1.4 in Cell Biology: A Laboratory Handbook, Volume 3, Elsevier Science, London, 2006.

"Masking by weak localization of metallic behavior in a two-dimensional electron system in strong parallel magnetic fields", with A. Lewalle, M. Pepper, C.J.B. Ford, D.J. Paul, G. Redmond, Physical Review B, 69, 75316, 2004.

"Relative importance of the electron interaction strength and disorder in the two-dimensional metallic state", with M. Pepper, C.J.B. Ford, E.H. Hwang, S. Das Sarma, D.J. Paul and G. Redmond, Physical Review B, 66, 75324, 2002.

"Investigation of the 2D 'metallic' state with rS and kFl controlled independently", with M. Pepper, C.J.B. Ford, D.J. Paul and G. Redmond, Physica E, 12, 616, 2002.