About the Analytical Division

A University of Warwick graduate, Diane started her career as an Analytical Chemist at an environmental laboratory and then at Jealott’s Hill research centre, later gaining significant experience as an Applications Chemist, including setting up and developing an applications laboratory & demonstration facility for a GC instrument distributor. Diane's area of research through her PhD studies at The Open University was disease diagnosis.
Diane has developed methods for, given support and high quality training for companies in most industries around the world for the past 20 years; presented and given short courses at global conferences, meetings and webinars; is an author on scientific papers, white papers, chromatography articles and a degree module and has co-authored a book with the RSC as a practical reference to Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry, for analysts at all experience levels. Diane is a trustee of the Recycling Organisation for Research Opportunities (RORO) and is regularly involved in outreach with her local schools in chemistry and space sciences. 

He has been awarded numerous awards for his research including the RSCs SAC Silver medal (2004), Corday Morgan prize (2009), a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit award (2010), the Craver Award from the Coblentz Society (2012) and was elected to the fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2008).    He completed at PhD in organic chemistry at the University of Edinburgh (1996) and his interests are in developing new diagnostic assays based on nanoparticles and spectroscopy.  He has published over 200 papers and graduated over 45 PhD students. He is a cofounder and director of Renishaw Diagnostics Ltd (2007) and has filed 13 patents with license deals on most of his portfolio. 

 Typically, the coatings have to combine demanding technical performance (e.g. protect against seawater in all weathers) with fabulous appearance (e.g. mirror-like gloss surface for a super yacht).   This leads to a range of analytical challenges, working with products from first concept through formulation development to in service.

Before moving into analysis, Jacquin worked in research and development of materials and coatings, starting in ICI and ending up in Huntsman.   This included work in Japan and Belgium, as well as the UK.   (And has left a continuing interest in all things Japanese (except karaoke), together with a small collection of Belgian beer glasses.)

Jacquin has previously been a member of the Industry and Technology Division Council, serving as President from 2011 to 2014.   She describes this experience as alternately intimidating, empowering and rewarding, but above all enjoyable.   She is currently Chair of the North East Region Analytical Division, and also a member of the Management Interest Group Committee.

Her favourite quote is “There is no synthesis without analysis”.

Prior to this, Zoë studied Forensic Science (BSc) at Nottingham Trent University before moving on to complete an MSc in Analytical Science at the University of Warwick. She completed her PhD in the development of novel diamond-based electrochemical sensors for analytical applications in 2017, going on to complete a 12-month Research Fellow position at the University of Warwick, funded by the prestigious Royal Society Innovation Award.

In addition to her role as Honorary Secretary, Zoë is also the Editor of Analytical Matters (the quarterly member newsletter of the Analytical Division) and has previously been the chair of the Analytical Science Network (early career) and was the publicity officer for both the Analytical Methods Committee and the Community for Analytical Measurement Science for several years. 

Zoë is also passionate about the communication of analytical science, having hosted the Schools’ Analyst Competition at the University of Warwick, having written several science communication articles for magazines and currently being on the #RSCPoster Twitter competition Scientific Committee. She is also passionate about improving Diversity and Inclusion in the chemical sciences, working on a range of initiatives to improve representation.

Paul is the Technical Specialist for the RSSL Taints and Volatile Analysis team, that provides rapid troubleshooting, and complex research projects for blue chip FMCG and SME food businesses.  He leads a team with a combined 75 years’ experience in food analysis.  He specializes in chromatography, and has worked in a number of sectors including defense, pharmaceutical, environmental and agricultural.

Paul is passionate about encouraging young people into science careers.  He is also a qualified NVQ assessor working with the RSC on accreditation of training courses and assessment of CSci applications and recently became a STEM ambassador supporting RSSLs science outreach program. 

He then worked on electrochemical DNA hybridization sensors with Prof. Adam Heller at University of Texas at Austin. Following a short Postdoctoral position with Prof. David Williams working on Gas sensors at UCL, he was appointed Lecturer at the Department of Chemistry at UCL where he is now a Reader in Physical Chemistry. 

He has diverse research interests such as free standing soap films, electron transfer through protein films, electrochemical mechanisms in astrochemical synthesis, understanding Haemoglobin polymerisation in sickle cell disease and the detection of bioaerosols. Daren’s main area of research is exploring the properties of conducting gases such as plasmas from an electrochemical perspective. 

He is the programme director of an MSc course in Applied Analytical Chemistry at UCL. The central ethos of the programme is to encourage independence and self-reliance with an aim to build students’ confidence in measurement science. We use immersive learning techniques where students are required to build a device to address a specific analytical question. 

Vicky is a graduate of Environmental Chemistry from Edinburgh University. In 2012, she gained her PhD in measurement and predictive modelling of contaminant dispersion in indoor air and in 2014, a PGCHE at London South Bank University (LSBU). During her time at LSBU she developed portable detectors of airborne pollutants and drug contaminants in drinks. Her research activities ranged from detection and dispersion modelling of drug contamination in surface waters to hazardous gas emissions in nuclear fuel reprocessing.  She gained a Pexa award for her paper on the dispersion of hydrocarbon vapours in ventilated air.

Vicky has contributed book chapters in ‘Drug Use and Misuse’ and ‘Environmental Forensics’ published by the RSC. She is a fellow of the HEA and member of the London Toxicology Group. Prior to LSBU, Vicky worked as a Food Health and Safety Scientist for Camden BRI (formerly Brewing Research International), Procter and Gamble, Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (NERC) and Valentine Paints.

Roy is an analytical chemist who has for the last 30 years focused on developing novel and innovative solutions for measuring complex biological systems; with an emphasis is on mass spectrometry-based metabolomics, Raman spectroscopy, and chemometrics.

He has helped develop analytical standards for metabolomics, as well as data analysis solutions and tutorials.  Finally, Roy has published over 400 research papers in bioanalytical chemistry and has a h-index of 87.

 She holds a prestigious 5-year EPSRC Fellowship (£1.2M), which investigates multimodal elemental and molecular imaging using ion beams, and sponsors her research group. She is also co-investigator of an EU grant (RADIATE) which links ion beam facilities across Europe and provides transnational access for users of ion beam analysis.

She has worked closely with the Home Office Centre for Applied Science, Israel Police and the Netherlands Forensic Institute to develop protocols for secondary ion mass spectrometry analysis of fingerprints. She has also worked as an Expert Consultant for the International Atomic Energy Agency to set up a co-ordinated research progress  and has worked with a number of police departments on forensic case work.

She enjoys public engagement and her work on method development for drug testing using fingerprints has been reported in over 500 media outlets worldwide – including Sky News, BBC, CNBC.

She has published over 140 peer reviewed publications and has filed 5 patents. She has been awarded over £20M in funding as principal and co-investigator from EPSRC, BBSRC, charities, industry and governmental bodies. Her Groups research has been recognised through multiple awards including the Nexxus Young Life Scientist of the Year Award (2009), Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Joseph Black Award (2013), Craver Award (2016) and Charles Mann Award (2019). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2012), the Society for Applied Spectroscopy (2017) and the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2018). She has been named as one of the Top 50 Women in Analytical Science (2016), Top 10 Spectroscopist (2017) and Top 100 Influential Analytical Scientists (2019) by The Analytical Scientist. She serves on the editorial board for Analyst and RSC Advances and is the current Chair of the Infrared and Raman Discussion Group (IRDG).

During her studies at Georgetown University, she was a Co-op Fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland.  She is a member of the University of Cincinnati Graduate Fellows and a Charter member of the University of Cincinnati Chapter’s National Academy of Inventors.

Her research interests involve understanding chromatographic and electrophoretic separation mechanisms, exploring new separation methods, characterizing surface confined ionic liquid-based stationary phases, characterizing complex carbohydrates, laser processing of microfluidic devices and nuclear forensics.  Her work has resulted in over 100 publications.

She currently serves on the Editorial Board of Trends in Analytical Chemistry and Journal of Liquid Chromatography and Related Techniques and is the Co-Chair (with Prof. Jeremy Glennon, University College Cork) of the 31st International Symposium on Chromatography in 2016.  She is a Fellow of the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland and the Royal Society of Chemistry (application pending), member of the American Chemical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Sigma Xi.

Since 2009, he has led the Environmental & Forensic Chemistry group at King’s College London. His research focuses on the development of new, defensible strategies, technologies and methodologies to assist in the early discovery, effects and response to pollution, new/emerging contaminants, security threats, and wildlife crime. His expertise lies in analytical chemistry, particularly in separation science, mass spectrometry and machine learning for applications in environmental, forensic and biological systems analysis and has published >70 peer-reviewed journal articles to date.

He sits on the editorial board of Science & Justice, Journal of the Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences and from 2011-2014 was its Editor in Chief. He is a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He also sits on the committees of the RSC Separation Science Group and the London Biological Mass Spectrometry Discussion Group.

Ruchi’s expertise lies in hydrogels, optical sensing, electrokinetic methods for sample processing, nano-/micro-fabrication, (droplet) microfluidics, bioassays and instrumentation. She also has an interest in organic electronics and optical components. The group has been/is funded by grants from RSC, EPSRC and industry. Dr Gupta is a member of the permanent steering committee of Europtrode, which is a major international conference in the field of optical biosensors, and an Associate Editor of RSC Advances. 

Dr Gupta completed her undergraduate and master's degrees at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and McMaster University, Canada respectively. She obtained a PhD from University of Manchester where she stayed as a postdoctoral research fellow and then a RAEng Enterprise Fellow. She was a Lecturer in Analytical Chemistry in University of Hull from 2014 to 2016.