After a 1988 BSc in Physics from the University of Leeds, an exchange scholarship MSc from the University of Alberta, work as a subeditor at Blackwell Scientific and constructing MadLab, an educational electronics company, Hugh began his research career as a PhD student based at the Royal Observatory of Edinburgh. His 1995 thesis from the University of Edinburgh was titled The Coolest Dwarfs. He then moved to the University of Tokyo as a European Commission research fellow working with Professor Takashi Tsuji to model atmospheres of cool dwarf stars. During that time he worked on the inclusion of dust in model atmospheres and co-founded the Anglo-Australian Planet Search. In 1997, he moved to Liverpool John Moores University and in 2000 also a position at the University of Liverpool. He was closely involved with founding and running a joint Physics degree, a suite of ten online distance learning courses and the Liverpool Robotic Telescope. He moved to Hertfordshire in 2004 and has extended his work into instrumentation with the development of the Bayfordbury Observatory, led the Institute of Physics accreditation for the University of Hertfordshire Physics degree and chaired the inaugural European Week of Astronomy and Space Science.