Dr. Richard Heenan started at ISIS in 1984, recruited to complete the construction of LOQ, the first SANS (Small-Angle Neutron Scattering) beam line at the ISIS Facility. He is now widely regarded as a global expert in the fields of small-angle scattering instrumentation, SANS data reduction and fitting, with contributions to over 300 scientific publications.

Richard was the lead scientist for the SANS2d instrument on the ISIS Second Target Station, and was also involved with the initial proposals and designs for the ZOOM instrument. His much used Fish software for SANS data fitting has now largely been superseded by Sasview​, an international, open source project.

Since 1995 Richard has been involved in many meetings and technical panels for time-of-flight SANS at the European Spallation Source (ESS), and was chair of the SANS STAP (Science & Technical Advisory Panel) from 2012 to 2015.

Richard partially retired in Feb 2016, but continued to to support the design and construction by STFC, in collaboration with the ESS, of the LoKI SANS instrument at the ESS. He was also much involved with the maintenance and development of Sasview. He also provided much-appreciated advice and expertise to the ISIS team, scientific collaborators, and external projects such as the SANS beam lines at the China Spallation Neutron Source.

After almost 40 years of dedicated service to small-angle scattering, home and abroad, Richard fully retired in Aug 2022.​