James obtained his MChem degree at the University of Sheffield in 2017, and then went on to work with Professor Julia Weinstein as a PhD student at Sheffield. His research focussed on electro- and photo-catalytic approaches to CO2 reduction using Earth-abundant transition metal complexes. The project also involved the study of Mn, Re, Fe, and Pt transition metal complexes by ultrafast TA, TRIR, and 2DIR spectroscopies. James obtained his PhD in 2021, and is now a postdoc in the Anna group, working with multidimensional spectroscopy.