Dr. Paul Spear

Senior Research Scientist
DTC Research Centre, Belmont Road
Maidenhead, Berkshire SL6 6JW, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1628 771234 Fax: +44 (0)1628 770101
E-mail: paul.spear@dtc.com

Dr Paul Spear is a senior scientist at the Diamond Trading Company (DTC) Research Centre, Maidenhead, involved in the Consumer Confidence Technical Research Programme. He has a BSc (Hon) Physics degree and Ph.D. in solid state physics (‘colour in natural and synthetic diamond’; supervisor: Professor Alan Collins) from the University of London King’s College. Paul also has an MBA with a focus on marketing. His MBA dissertation ‘Nature versus nurture in the gem diamond industry’ examined the evolution of the synthetic and HPHT treated diamond market sectors.

His work at DTC has included spectroscopic research into the origin of colour in natural, synthetic and treated diamonds. He headed the team that designed and developed the original De Beers DiamondView™ instrument and coordinated the loan and commissioning of the De Beers DiamondSure™ and DiamondView™ instruments at numerous gemmological laboratories around the world. Paul has been involved extensively in technical liaison with DTC clients, trade, gemmological laboratories and media having given many Consumer Confidence presentations around the world. Paul represented the DTC Technical Research team in the BBC Horizon (and Nova) programme ’The Diamond Makers’ (January 2000). More recently, Paul, with a core team, produced the successful multimedia DTC CD-ROM, DIAMONDS: treatments, synthetics and simulants.

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