Current Group Members

Erin Templeton After a B.Sc. in Chemistry and Biochemistry at Concordia University and a M.Sc. in Forensic and Biological Anthropology at Bournemouth University (UK), Erin finally settled down in analytical chemistry. She started her Ph.D. in September 2009 working on soil sample analysis on centrifugal microfluidic discs and sample manipulation on discs.

Adam Bouchard Adam joined the lab after taking Instrumental Analysis. He worked on on liquid addition to centrifugal microfluidic devices before moving onto synchronizing a spectrometer to be used while a device is spinning. His hobbies include cycling, golf and curling.

Honorary Group Members

Mystery Man Can you guess who this mysterious handsome German young man is? He is not officially a group member, but he has been with us from the start. The type of research we do would not be possible without his precious help in designing and building instruments.

Recent Group Members

Alexei Kazarine Alexei completed his honours project with our group in the summer of 2011 and stayed on to start his M. Sc. in 2012, completing it in 2014. He developed an automated liquid-liquid extraction centrifugal microfluidic device and a new image segmentation based technique allowing real time volume measurements on centrifugal microfluidic platforms to automate analysis processes. A major enthusiast of MATLAB, software development and computers, Alexei is also the IT guy of the lab, running the lab network and this website in his spare time.

Matthew Kong Matthew joined our group in 2010 and completed his Ph. D in 2013. His work centered on the development of a contactless pneumatic flow control system on centrifugal microfluidic platforms and its application to the miniaturisation of a wide range of analytical techniques.

David Duford David's lab work has included using the inductively heated vaporizer for hair analysis with AA and AF detection. His current project involves soil and solid sample analysis on centrifugal microfluidic platforms as well as comparing a variety of prototyping techniques. He is also the handyman in the lab, always building or fixing or modifying furniture.

Ling Yi Tam Ling Yi signed up with the group as a technical assistant in May 2011 and assisted on a variety of centrifugal microfluidics projects. Always a smiling person, Ling Yi keeps a mysteriously well stocked food drawer from which occasionally bestows mountains of sweets upon her labmates

David Polcari David joined the group in September 2010 to work on his honour's project. He quickly became known as Junior to minimize our own confusion! :P He has since started his Masters degree in the Mauzeroll group.

Larissa Jorge Larissa completed an honours project with us in the Spring of 2010 and decided to continue to work with us for the summer. Her work has revolved around prototyping filters in fused silica capillaries for solid sample analysis on centrifugal microfluidic devices.

YongQuing Xi YongQuing is a visiting Ph.D. student from Shanghai University. She is working on the liquid extraction of PAHs from soil using centrifugal microfluidic devices. Microfluidics was a natural choice for her considering she has the smallest hands in the world!

Josiane Lafleur Josiane worked during summer '04 calibrating the inductively heated vaporizer for the analysis of Hg in hair strands. She has since started her Ph.D. with our group. Her focuses include laser ablation of chromatographic columns on centrifugal microfluidic platforms, thin layer chromatography and decorating everything in the lab. When not toiling in the lab, Josiane also volunteers for Let's Talk Science and Organic Campus. In August 2009, Josiane submitted her Ph.D. thesis and is now off for new adventures at DTU Nanotech as a postdoctoral fellow.

Dan Peng (Donna) A Chemical Engineering student, Donna joined our group as an undergraduate student research assistant for the summer 2008. As part of her summer project, she is setting up a LABview controlled servo motor to spin centrifugal microfluidic devices very precisely and will be using it to extract heavy metals from fish tissue.

Angela LaCroix-Fralish Angela obtained her B.S. in Biology: Ecology/ Environmental Science from the Minnesota State University in 2003. After working as a research assistant in the Trace Elements Core Facility at Dartmouth College for two years, she started her masters project with us in 2007. She worked on the detection of nitrate/nitrite on centrifugal micofluidic platforms. She was co-supervised by Prof. Cameron Skinner from Concordia University and obtained her masters degree in January 2009.

Andrien Rackov Andrien joined our group in the summer of 2007 as an undergraduate research assistant. His work focuses on the pre-concentration of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) on centrifugal microfluidic devices and their in-situ fluorescence detection.He has since started his Ph.D down the hall in the Burns' Group.

Scott McAuley Scott joined our group in the fall of 2007 as part of his honours research project. His work focuses on the separation of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) on centrifugal microfluidic devices and their direct detection by absorption spectrophotometry.Scott has since started his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto.

Michal Shavit Michal did her Honours project in our gorup in 2007-2008. Her work focused on the rapid determination of Cr(VI) in environmental samples using centrifugal microfluidic devices.

Rebecca Lam A past summer student with the Salin group, Rebecca obtained her Ph.D. in 2007. Her projects included the laser ablation ICP-AES and MS, and various applications of the inductively heated vaporizer. She is known for not being a morning person.

Kevin Bemben After completing his undergraduate degree at Queens University, Kevin joined us for his M.Sc. in Sept. 2003. He worked on the optimization of laser ablation ICP-MS for trace element analysis in human hair strands. As the photo shows, he also sacrificed his own hair in the name of science.

Margaret Antler Her research focused on the automatic selection of analysis criteria for ICP-MS, and calibration techniques. She is now working for a company in Toronto that develops chemistry software.

Julie Asselin Julie completed her B.Sc. at Université Laval and joined the group in the summer of 2001. She has just been granted her M.Sc. for her graduate work with this lab, and is now fulltime as a project manager for a local research company.

Erica Salin Otherwise known as the boss' daughter, Erica worked as the lab slave technician for a few semesters. She is working on her BCom degree here at McGill.

Summer 2004

David Troiani David spent his summer testing new experiments using photodiode array detectors (Ocean Optics) for the undergraduate CHEM 377 Instrumental Analysis course. He started his graduate degree with the Burns' group in 2004.

Summer 2003

Jane Maxwell Another chemistry undergrad student, Jane worked with us during the summer '03 as part of the Honours summer research program. She worked on a standards additions technique with transient signals in LC-ICP-MS. She is now a Ph.D. student at UBC.

Madeleine Jensen-Fontaine Madeleine also worked in our lab as part of the summer undergraduate research program. She explored the use of laser ablation ICP-MS for the analysis of mercury in human hair.

Summer 2002

Isabelle Levesque, Meghan Marshall, and Gwen Preston Isabelle worked on the the digital control of the electrothermal vaporizer. Gwen, under joint supervision of Dr. Burns and Dr. Salin, studied wave guides for Hg analysis. Meghan explored the laser ablation of chromatographic material in microcolumns, and continued to work in our lab part-time during the following semesters. Isabelle is now working as a chemist, Gwen is in journalism school, and Meghan is a technician at Selwyn House.

Guillaume Bort Guillaume, a student from France, did his work 'stage' with our lab. He helped with standard additions and internal standard calibration studies.

Pictures and abstracts for other former students will be eventually added.