Mathew Collins completed a degree in Marine Zoology, then a PhD in Geology before Fellowships in Chemistry and Biochemistry and postdoctoral research in Biogeochemistry. He first lectured in Biogeochemistry (Newcastle) before moving to York in 2003 to establish BioArCh, an interdisciplinary grouping of Biologists, Archaeologists and Chemists. He now also has the wonderful privilege of being a DNRF funded Niels Bohr Professor at the Natural History Museum in Copenhagen. His research focuses on old proteins. He attempts to identify samples by differences in protein sequence, date samples by the extent of protein degradation and if both fail, to understand pathways of decay in archaeological materials.