Now: indexing dive log

HENRY MONTAGU /* phd */

Quantum physicist by training (PhD, UCL) I spent years coaxing electrons into doing strange and beautiful things at temperatures colder than deep space. Now I'm a Principal Security Engineer, chasing anomalies through hyperscale data with the same instincts.

On weekends I disappear underwater as PADI Divemaster.

Portrait of Henry Montagu
ACTIVE

1

PhD · quantum physics

7

Peer-reviewed papers

1

Patent granted

Dives & counting

▸ now() building / ML anomaly pipelines reading / "The Alchemist" — Coelho diving / Philippines (next) listening / chillsynth radio last_update / 2026-04-30

§ 01/07· about

A short story,
in three acts.

I. I started as a physicist. BEng (First Class) and PhD at UCL, years in basement labs fabricating quantum wires and watching electrons behave in ways that still feel like magic. Left with a doctorate, a Dean's Prize, scholarships and several papers.

II. Quantum cryptography pulled me into security where first protecting quantum hardware, then SOC work, threat hunting, building data pipelines. The mental muscle is the same: form a hypothesis, run an experiment, read the noise, find the signal.

III. Today I'm a Principal Security Engineer applying ML to hyperscale logs, leading high-severity incident response, writing automation that lets humans sleep at night.

"Physics taught me how to be wrong gracefully and how to keep looking until the data tells you something true."

§ 02/07· physicist by training

Henry Montagu

ψ · eqniℏ ∂Ψ/∂t = ĤΨ

My doctoral research, Interaction Effects in Quasi One-Dimensional Quantum Wires, focused on transport in low-dimensional semiconductors at ultra-low temperatures including fractional conductance plateaus in zero magnetic field.

I'm not in the lab anymore, but the physics never really leaves you. I still read papers, still get giddy about quantum mechanics, and still apply the same mindset to my day job.

doctorate

PhD, Quantum Physics

UCL

Scholarships

Undergrad and Postgrad Awards

UCL

Recognition

Dean's Prize

UCL

read the papers
$ cat ~/about/research.txt
field : quantum transport
temperature: ~30 mK // colder than deep space
device : GaAs/AlGaAs split-gate quantum wires
discovery : fractional plateaus @ B=0
published : PRL · APL · APEX · Phys. Rev. Applied
patent : US11621840B2 (granted)
$ _

§ 04/07· security, today

From electrons
to anomalies

I work on detection & response, security automation, and applying machine learning to security telemetry. I lead high-severity incident response, build ML-driven anomaly detection on Apache Spark, and design Detection-as-Code pipelines that turn investigations into reusable code.

Across my career I've worked across multiple hyperscale environments protecting cloud infrastructure, and critical national infrastructure. My background spans across multiple security domains.

cap_01

Detection & Response

Leading incident response on hyperscale infrastructure. Building Detection-as-Code pipelines, runbooks, and automation that turns one-off investigations into reusable rules.

cap_02

ML for Security

Anomaly detection over petabyte-scale logs on Apache Spark. Building features, models, and feedback loops that surface genuinely interesting signal from a sea of noise.

cap_03

Threat Hunting & Forensics

Hypothesis-driven hunts across endpoint, network, and cloud. Reverse engineering attacker behaviour and translating findings into long-lived detections and hardening.

cap_04

Cloud & Infrastructure Security

Multi-cloud security engineering across AWS, GCP, Azure, and OCI. Identity, network policy, secrets, and Kubernetes hardening at production scale.

cap_05

Data Engineering

Designing and operating the security data platform ingestion, normalisation, enrichment, and querying. Making sure the data is there before you need it.

cap_06

Quantum Cryptography

From my time in industry research: identifier and key generation based on quantum mechanical effects in semiconductor devices (resulting in a granted US patent).

stack /

Python · Rust · Apache Spark · Kafka · Kubernetes · Terraform · BigQuery · ClickHouse · Elasticsearch · AWS · GCP · Azure · OCI

Companies /

Cloudflare · Atlassian · AWS · Curve · Careem · Mishcon de Reya · Crypto Quantique · BT Security

§ 06/07· giving back

Mentoring
& community.

The best part of being further along the path is helping the people behind you. I mentor junior security engineers and detection engineers through multiple programs and avenue and I try to make time for early-career physics PhD students figuring out what comes after the lab.

I also support a few causes that matter to me: ocean conservation through PADI AWARE (a natural fit for a Divemaster), and STEM outreach encouraging more first-generation students into physics and engineering.

  • security engineer mentorship
  • physics PhD career chats
  • ocean conservation & STEM outreach

§ 07/07· off the clock

PADI Divemaster. 🤿

When I'm not staring at logs, I'm under quite a lot of saltwater. Diving is the one thing that reliably empties my brain where is no Slack, no dashboards, just bubbles and the occasional reef shark giving me side-eye.

As a Divemaster I help guide dives, look after newer divers, and try to point at the right fish at the right time. It's the most fun I've ever had being responsible for other people.

§ 08/08· say hi

Let's
talk.

Open to chats about security, ML, physics, dive trips, or anything that needs an extra brain. Easiest way to reach me is on LinkedIn.

find me on linkedin