Canadian Powder Diffraction Workshop 19

Bob has influenced generations of XRD enthusiasts around the world with his program GSAS II, a free, friendly, and well documented software to perform a myriad of XRD data reduction and analysis including Rietveld refinement. Throughout his prolific career, Bob worked at J.S. Anderson’s lab at Oxford, Arizona State University, the Los Alamos LANSCE and Argonne IPNS spallation neutron sources, and recently retired as a Senior Physicist at Argonne National Laboratory. He was President of the American Crystallographic Association and Recipient of the ACA Trueblood Award as well as the ICDD Barrett and Hanawalt Awards; he is a Fellow of both the Mineralogical Society of America and the ACA.

Brad Losey is an XRD Application Specialist at Malvern Panalytical with a background in physical inorganic chemistry. He supports customers across a wide range of powder X-ray diffraction techniques applied to areas ranging from pharmaceuticals to primary materials to advanced research and manufacturing. These techniques include phase identification and quantification, residual stress/texture, small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), pair distribution function (PDF), thin film analysis, and non-ambient XRD. In addition, Brad provides assistance across an array of software and data analysis topics, which range from specialized XRD analysis techniques, such as Rietveld refinement, to the implementation of machine learning models for phase identification and quantification.

Elaa Ben Fredj is a product specialist at Anton Paar, specializing in X-ray diffraction (XRD), small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), non-ambient attachments, surface area, and pore size techniques. Elaa holds a Master's degree in Chemistry from Montreal University, where she focused her research on Li-ion batteries, utilizing XRD techniques to support her work. With a strong academic background and practical expertise, Elaa is passionate about providing innovative solutions and technical support to clients in the field of material characterization.

Izabela Kolodziej is an application scientist at Proto X-ray Diffraction. She obtained her Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the University of Windsor under the supervision of Dr. James Green, focusing on small molecule synthesis. She spent several years doing research and development working as an analytical chemist in the pharmaceutical industry before transitioning to Proto. Izabela has spent over a decade working with a range of analytical equipment, with the addition of X-ray diffraction instrumentation since joining Proto. She has focused on active pharmaceutical ingredients, scale deposits, retained austenite and carbides in steel, and recently on single crystal.

Tom is an Application Scientist specializing in powder X-ray diffraction at Bruker AXS. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Calgary, where his research explored structure and property relationships in novel ferroelectric ceramics. Following that, he accepted a postdoctoral appointment in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at North Carolina State University. His work there centered on developing innovative ceramic processing techniques, with a particular emphasis on analysis using in‑situ high temperature X-ray diffraction. At Bruker, his responsibilities include supporting customers by providing expertise in XRD theory, instrumentation, and data analysis.

Joel Reid is a Senior Industrial Scientist at the CLS, specializing in powder diffraction for the Industry Services group. Prior to joining the CLS in 2011, Joel held a position as Senior Scientific Editor at the International Centre for Diffraction Data (Newtown Square, PA), and as a research scientist working on biomaterials for bone replacement at Millenium Biologix (Kingston, ON). An engineering physicist by training, he completed his undergraduate and PhD in engineering physics at Queen’s University in Kingston. His work with clients and collaborators often involves identification and quantification of complex, multiphase mixtures and the solving of new structures with powder diffraction.

Graham received his B.S. in Chemistry from SUNY Buffalo and his Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from The Ohio State University working with Patrick Woodward.  He then did a post-doc at the Lujan Neutron Scattering Center at Los Alamos National Lab followed by several years as a staff scientist.  He came to the Canadian Light Source as a Brockhouse Scientist in 2018.  His research is focused on advancing structural analysis using advanced powder diffraction methods.  This includes Rietveld refinements, ab-initio structural solution of extended and molecular solids, and local structure analysis using the pair distribution function.  He is an advocate for probing the structure of a material over several length scales in order to obtain a complete structural understanding.

Al received a B.Sc. majoring in Physics at the University of Guelph. He then remained there earning his M.Sc. and Ph.D. His work was primarily based on the interpretation of short-range ordering in amorphous solids from Pair Distribution Function (PDF) data. Al also did experimental commissioning of a rotating Cu-anode lab x-ray diffractometer performing a variety of x-ray diffraction experiments. During his Ph.D. Al also spent time commissioning the Brockhouse High-Energy Wiggler (BXDS-WHE) beamline and as a user. Al joined the Brockhouse team in February 2020 and has helped bring Brockhouse beamlines into the general user phase, designing experiments and developing software to improve functionality at the BXDS-HEW and the Brockhouse Undulator (BXDS-UND) beamlines. He is also currently developing and commissioning high-resolution PDF experiments at Brockhouse.

Anita is the X-ray specialist in the Structural Chemistry Facility in the Chemistry Dept. at UBC.  She specializes in the X-ray diffraction of powder, polycrystalline, and new materials and also supports the single crystal side of the facility.  She has an MSc degree from UBC; for her thesis, she used single crystal X-ray diffraction in a crystallographic study of tellurium oxysalt minerals.  Prior to her current role, she spent many years working in hydrometallurgical research, working on novel methods of water-based extraction of gold and/or copper from ores.  Anita organized and co-hosted the CPDW16 2023 at UBC and has attended and instructed at previous CPDWs. 

Renfei received his PhD degree in atomic and molecular physics in 1993. Before joining CLS, he worked as an assistant (1993) and associate professor (1995) in University of Science and Technology of China; research associate (1997) in University of British Columbia; and staff scientist (2002) in Alberta Synchrotron Institute. He has extensive experience in electron and X-ray spectroscopy and microscopy, and has published ~100 research articles in SCI (EI) journals.

Adam received a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Saskatchewan in 2008. He went on to pursue a PhD at McMaster University under the supervision of Prof. Adam Hitchcock. In 2012, he accepted a post-doctorate position in the X-ray Optics for Extreme Conditions group led by Dr. Sasa Bajt, at DESY, Hamburg, Germany. In 2013 Adam accepted a position at the CLS to lead the design, construction and commissioning of a cryo-STXM for the SM beamline. In 2016 he joined the Brockhouse Sector, an empty patch of concrete floor that would become three hard X-ray beamlines. Adam continues to develop and deliver the many endstations at BXDS, including the powder diffraction and SAXS/WAXS user programs. He is also interested in the fate of nanoparticles in wildlife and the environment.