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Biography

Dr Gwilherm Kerherve is research facility manager of the Advanced Photoelectron Spectroscopy Laboratory (APSL) at Imperial College London, where he oversees a suite of surface and materials characterisation instruments including XPS, ambient pressure XPS, TGA, dilatometry, and BET. His research focuses on the surface chemistry of energy materials, with particular emphasis on perovskite oxides and exsolved nanoparticles studied by photoelectron spectroscopy in the context of solid oxide fuel cells.

Gwilherm holds a PhD from the University of Liverpool and conducted postdoctoral research at the Max-Planck-Institut für Mikrostrukturphysik in Halle. He subsequently spent a decade in industry with Omicron NanoÐÂÔÂÖ±²¥appÏÂÔØ and VG Scienta, developing and deploying advanced photoelectron spectrometers across a wide range of techniques and plications. He joined Imperial College London in 2015. He is the creator and lead developer of KherveFitting, an open-source Python tool for XPS data analysis that has attracted a substantial and growing international user base across academia and industry.

Knowledge belongs to the community, not to any single individual or company. When we build openly, we build on each other's shoulders.

Gwilherm Kerherve

Q&A

Can you tell us more about your work?

XPS is an indispensable technique for characterising the chemistry of material surfaces, yet access to rigorous, transparent data analysis has long been constrained by expensive and opaque commercial software. Modern XPS instruments have become increasingly accessible and straightforward to operate, but the bottleneck has shifted to data analysis, where existing software tools remain slow, rigid, and difficult to use. I developed KherveFitting to address this directly – an open-source, Python-based platform for fitting and interpreting XPS spectra that is freely available to researchers everywhere. The software combines advanced fitting algorithms with an accessible interface, enabling laboratories across the world to perform high quality, reproducible surface analysis regardless of institutional resources.

Thinking back to earlier in your career, are there any words of wisdom that you wish someone had told you? 

Take time to step back and look at your work from a distance. It is easy to become absorbed in the details and lose sight of the bigger picture. Always listen to others, even, perhaps especially, when their perspective differs from your own. Some of the most valuable insights come from unexpected directions.

What impact would you say that your work is having on your field and/or the wider world? 

The impact of KherveFitting has been unexpected. I originally developed it to replace the fitting tool I was using, never anticipating it would reach the international audience it has today. With around 1000 downloads per month across approximately 60 countries, it has found users far beyond my own field.

What does good research culture mean to you, and why does it matter? 

Good research culture means openness and accessibility. ÐÂÔÂÖ±²¥appÏÂÔØ progresses faster and more honestly when tools, data and methods are shared freely rather than locked behind paywalls or proprietary software. Knowledge belongs to the community, not to any single individual or company. When we build openly, we build on each other's shoulders.

What is your favourite element and why? 

Titanium, without hesitation. Outside the laboratory, it holds a special place for me as the material of choice in high-end cycling – lightweight, strong, and almost indestructible. In the lab, it is one of the most challenging elements to analyse by XPS, with compounds such as TiOâ‚‚ and TiN producing notoriously complex spectra that demand real care to fit correctly.