Roger Appleby received his BSc in Chemistry from Leicester University in 1974 and then his PhD titled "Vibrational Spectroscopy Under Pressure" in 1977. He completed a post-doctoral study on laser light scattering from solutions and liquid crystals at the University of Queensland (Australia) in 1979.

He then joined the UK Ministry of Defence and carried out research into image intensifiers, thermal imagers and lasers. He currently leads the passive millimeter wave imaging team at QinetiQ Malvern UK. His team has pioneered the use of real-time mechanically scanned passive millimeter-wave imagers for security and poor-weather surveillance. At 35GHz, this technology has been used to scan PVC-sided trucks at channel ports in Europe for the detection of illegal immigrants, and was also used to construct a portal for imaging people in the indoor environment. At 94GHz it has been applied to standoff to security scanning and helicopter collision avoidance. He chaired a NATO panel TG14 on Passive and active millimeter wave imaging. Appleby is a Senior QinetiQ Fellow, and was named a Fellow of SPIE in 2009 for specific achievements in mmW imaging.

Roger Appleby Interview (streaming video)

Appleby was interviewed at the SPIE Defense, Security and Sensing symposium in Orlando, FL in April, 2009 by Ron Scotti.