The aim of my research is to understand the formation and evolution of galaxies. I focus on studying very distant galaxies, which we can observe in the act of formation. To this end I lead the Ultra-Deep Survey, the deepest large-scale survey ever conducted of the distant Universe. Requiring over 200 nights of telescope time, built up over 7 years, the image is now of sufficient depth to observe large numbers of galaxies within the first billion years after the Big Bang. Recent work in Nottingham has focussed on using these data to trace the build-up of cosmic structure and probe the role played by dark matter in shaping galaxy evolution.