Expert Details
Explosives Instrument Detection, Trace Explosives Chemical Analysis, Optical Spectroscopy, Polymers
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ID: 723493
New York, USA
Expert has sourced and selected special analytical instrumentation that could identify and detect threat substances at the picogram/ liter level in the chemical laboratory as part of a staff of research scientists. He worked on all stages of laboratory equipment certification from the initial installation to the final performance qualification of various instruments ranging from an atmospheric pressure ionization triple quadropole mass spectrometer to a confocal scanning Raman imaging spectromter. He developed new hyphenated analytical techniques and laboratory protocols to analyze molecules such as nitroaromatics in the gas phase and microparticle plastic explosive residues in the condensed phase. Certain of these laboratory techniques such as ion mobility spectrometry were eventually simplified and reduced to compact field analytical instrumentation for deployment by a government agency.
He has also worked on the development of new detection methods, miniaturized analysis modules and chemical sensors for automated real time analysis of a wider array of organic substances. He contributed his instrument design expertise to new detector research by developing standard calibration sources and conducting performance testing to determine figures of merit such as specificity and sensitivity. He determined explosives detection reliability through the generation of receiver operator curves for sensors such as surface acoustic wave resonators and detector modules such as cavity ringdown laser absorption spectrometers. He contributed the engineering design requirements to the final product development of a large volume air sampling concentrator and ion mobility spectrometer that is currently being marketed.
He has modified various optical components such as lasers, monochromators, and CCD cameras to meet subsystem manufacturer specifications . He performed the systems integration to incorporate these components with other detectors that would produce first stage prototypes. One such project involved the design and development of a mid infrared difference frequency laser source for the miniature cavity ringdown cell and concentrator being developed in a joint effort by a major instrumentation company and a university research group. Another project focused on the design of an inlet desorption sampler for a laser photoionization time of flight mass spectrometer.
He has conducted liquid phase spectroscopic studies using colloidal microparticles and polyelectrolytes for probing physical chemical interactions with other target molecules. He worked with molecules such as fluorone dyes for microparticle fluorescence enhancement and nucleic acids for fluorescence resonance energy transfer using both custom laser spectrofluorometers and commercial filter fluorometers. He developed biosensing techniques for oligonucleotide hybridization using aqueous fluorene conjugated polymers that formed the basis for microarray applications. He characterized the sorption process of dilute analytes such as trinitrotoluene down at the microscopic level using techniques such as surface enhanced Raman Spectroscopy.
Expert has applied his analytical expertise towards determining the composition of more complex fluids, gels and dispersions. Recently he has developed protocols for the process analysis of copolymer blends that incorporated polymer derivatives of polyethylene glycol and polydimethylsiloxane using attenuated total reflectance sampling and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrocscopy. He monitored emulsification processes in-situ using laser scattering spectroscopy. He quantitatively analyzed suspensions, slurries and liquid mixtures of potentially unstable oxidizing compounds such as perchlorates using confocal near IR Raman probing techniques.
He received a request for a quick analytical screening technique to detect natural products such as steroids in a complex binder matrix. He visited the client's laboratory and utilized their existing equipment to come up with an appropriate analytical method. He identified Attentuated Total Reflectance IR Spectroscopy of powdered solids as a quick method to substantiate the presence of the active substance, oxandralone, in generic pharmaceuticals. He wrote a standard operating procedure for the method, and developed a validation protocol to test the technique.
Education
Year | Degree | Subject | Institution |
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Year: 1988 | Degree: Bachelor of Engineering | Subject: Electro-Optics | Institution: Stevens Institute of Technology |
Year: 1990 | Degree: Master of Science | Subject: Optics | Institution: University of Rochester |
Year: 1998 | Degree: Master of Science | Subject: Polymer Chemistry | Institution: Polytechnic University |
Work History
Years | Employer | Title | Department |
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Years: 2017 to 2018 | Employer: Independent Consultant to Henkel, NA | Title: Data Analyst & Scientist | Department: CPG Big Data Solutions |
Responsibilities:He worked with the on premise enterprise data warehouse on MS SQL Server for developing queries against historical sales data for pipelines on the JVM to BI platforms that included Tableau & PowerBiHe wrangled big datasets for HDFS storage on a Hadoop cluster running Java APIs for job scheduling and data pipelining onto a server with the Business Intelligence Visualization Platform Application He extracted and transformed datasets for loading onto Hive using Python libraries such as Numpy, Pandas, SciPy, Sci-Kit Learn, & SPARK SQL He prepared pipelines using jython orchestration combined with a Python execution engine for data transformations on the JVM for dashboard tools and apps He created data models and schemas for testing with sample retail data sets on a MySQL instance on GCP before any migration Implemented forecasting (ARIMA, Prophet) and supervised learning models (Linear Models in libraries such as PyStan) for retail stores to predict inventory and sales for supply chain planning He developed ML models (Gradient Boosted Trees, Random Forests) for pricing optimization using tools such as H2O AI that could be deployed on a Hadoop cluster with the JVM |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 2014 to 2017 | Employer: Independent Vendor to Caprice Electronics | Title: Big Data Services | Department: E-Commerce |
Responsibilities:He worked with the e-commerce client team on setting up the architecture for a new consumer site using AWS Kinesis, DynamoDB, and RedShift to handle the data warehouse and data feeds.He migrated web extracted data and supplier data to AWS in S3 and extracted views of sales data from the client’s ERP platform with SQL Server on the backend. He worked on Web Data extraction of e-commerce site listings of client and competitor products (Python & Selenium) through a web scraping application for price monitoring. He ran the ETL of price and web data and checked for statistical outliers in Python and R prior to regression analysis. Implemented SPARK SQL jobs on a Databricks Spark cluster for querying big data sets of retail financial intelligence data from the web site. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 2010 to 2014 | Employer: Independent Consultant to Decisiontrend | Title: Market Research Analyst for Biopharma, Semiconductor, Environmental Sectors | Department: Primary Market Research |
Responsibilities:He conducted market research surveys by interviewing respondents over the telephone that were using Agilent’s analytical instrumentation for petrochemicals, materials, geological, and environmental applications.He conducted market research analysis, through the telephone, by surveying the needs of scientists using analytical instrumentation for life sciences applications (MALDI TOF mass spectrometry) for genomics and proteomics analysis. He identified research objectives based on the client's secondary market research reports. He communicated with customers with questions about product pain points and preferred software solutions such as LIMS and SAAS options. He presented the results of technology competitive market analysis to the client's research manager. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 2008 to 2009 | Employer: Independent Consultant to Airbus Innovation | Title: Laser and Chemical Sensing Expert | Department: EADS-NA Security |
Responsibilities:He provided technical support in finding custom solutions based on emerging photonics technologies for chemical sensors under development in the client’s (EADS-NA) product pipelineHe identified and qualified components such as UV laser devices for use as an ionization source in two photon spectroscopy for chemical analysis |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 2006 to 2008 | Employer: Chemtec | Title: Technical Consultant | Department: Technology Development |
Responsibilities:He provided formulation expertise on the use of UV absorbing metal oxides down to the nanoscale level for topical sunscreen applications. He developed polymer blend compositions incorporating polyethylene glycol and polyvinyl pyrrolidone for medical device applications. He developed more stable beverage flavors utilizing colloidal dispersions. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 2003 to 2005 | Employer: Chemsil | Title: Analytical Chemist | Department: Quality Control |
Responsibilities:He set up a Quality Control Database Management System to test and track all outgoing products and incoming raw materials for a chemical distrbutor.He developed and validated analytical methods using FTIR spectroscopy for the quality assurance of raw materials and products. He monitored polymer blend processing by off line tests for morphology, rheology, and spectroscopy. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 2002 to 2003 | Employer: Pearson (Lessonlab Inc) | Title: Physical Science Consultant | Department: |
Responsibilities:He served on a focus group for the development of a digital library of video and text of scientific content for educational training software. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 2000 to 2002 | Employer: University of California at Santa Barbara | Title: Research Associate | Department: |
Responsibilities:He created preliminary engineering drawings for components of a new bioanalytical instrument for a genomic sequencing project.He conducted bioinformatic research on target DNA sequences using various computational tools. He modified and analyzed nucleotides using techniques such as MALDI mass spectrometry, PCR, and HPLC. He conducted nucleic acid hybridization studies for use in novel biochip technologies. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 1999 to 2000 | Employer: Columbia University | Title: Teaching Associate | Department: Chemistry Department |
Responsibilities:He developed some new course content for first year chemistry laboratories. |
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Years | Employer | Title | Department |
Years: 1990 to 1998 | Employer: Homeland Security Department | Title: Electronics Engineer | Department: Transportation Security Laboratory (Aviation Security R&D) |
Responsibilities:He was part of the joint agency development team for the first prototype of the Sentinel Explosives Detection Personnel Portal.He managed the research on projects for the next generation of explosive sensor devices that included miniaturized ion mobility detector cells and surface acoustic wave resonators. He developed methods for trace explosives analysis using optical spectrometry techniques such as Raman spectroscopy. He worked on the design, construction and testing of new components for system integration from acousto optic tunable filter spectrometers to hollow fiber membrane concentrators. |
Government Experience
Years | Agency | Role | Description |
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Years: 1990 to 1998 | Agency: Homeland Security (formerly FAA/DOT) | Role: Research Staff Member - Electronics Engineer | Description: He was part of the joint agency development team for the first prototype of the Sentinel Explosives Detection Personnel PortalHe oversaw the research on projects for the next generation of explosive sensor devices such as miniature ion mobility spectrometers and surface acoustic wave resonatorsHe developed methods for trace explosives analysis using optical spectrometry techniques such as Raman spectroscopy He worked on the design, construction and testing of new components for system integration such as laser OPO sources, acousto optic tunable filter spectrometers, and hollow fiber membrane concentrators. |
Career Accomplishments
Associations / Societies |
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He is a member of the Optical Society of America and the American Chemical Society |
Licenses / Certifications |
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Professional Cloud Architect, Google Inc, 2020 A Professional Cloud Architect enables organizations to leverage Google Cloud technologies. With a thorough understanding of cloud architecture and Google Cloud Platform, this individual can design, develop, and manage robust, secure, scalable, highly available, and dynamic solutions to drive business objectives. |
Awards / Recognition |
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He was awarded the Excellence in Technology Transfer Award by the Federal Aviation Administration |
Publications and Patents Summary |
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He authored an article on Difference Frequency Laser Absorption Spectroscopy for Chemical Trace Detection. |
Additional Experience
Training / Seminars |
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He developed and delivered a seminar on explosive detection technology to a major university. |
Vendor Selection |
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He drafted user requirements, performance specifications, and contractual work statements for the purpose of equipping a new analytical laboratory with spectroscopic instruments. He selected sources for enterprise resource planning software for chemical distributors. |
Marketing Experience |
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He worked on the quality testing phase of teacher training software for the physical sciences. |
Other Relevant Experience |
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He worked with genomic search and computational applications for projects in fluorescence based biosensing and DNA analysis. He developed scripts and rudimentary applications in Perl, Java, SQL, for chemical data analysis and laboratory database information management. |
Language Skills
Language | Proficiency |
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Spanish | He has the fluency to translate technical information from experience serving as technical support on business trips to countries such as Spain and Mexico |
Fields of Expertise
analytical chemistry, explosives detection, trace analysis, plastic explosive, dynamite, analytical chemistry instrument, analytical laboratory, analysis technique, chemical testing laboratory, chemical instrument, qualitative chemical analysis, quantitative chemical analysis, ion mobility spectrometer, chemical analysis, explosives detection instrument, chemical analysis instrumentation design, real-time spectroscopic analysis, analytical standard, explosives trace detection, absorption spectroscopy, laser spectroscopy, optical instrument, optical instrumentation, near-infrared laser, near-infrared spectrophotometer, fluorescence measurement, fluorometer, ultraviolet spectroscopy, laser spectrophotometry, DNA probe technology, optical spectroscopy, elastomer, Fourier transform infrared spectrometer, organic compound quantitative analysis, polysilicone chemistry, infrared absorption spectroscopy, laser light scattering, homeland, homeland security, high-performance liquid chromatography detector, optical imaging system, ammonium nitrate, analytical monitoring, bioanalytical chemistry, gas-phase infrared spectroscopy, gunpowder, ammonium perchlorate, infrared spectrophotometry, amorphous polymer, analytical test, analytical testing, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, analyte, absorption spectrophotometer, biophysical chemistry, monochromator, imaging spectroscopy, analytical method validation, cosmetic polymer, analytical biochemistry, diode laser spectroscopy, analysis instrument, organic compound qualitative analysis, electrooptic device, explosive chemical compound, polymer science, oligonucleotide, database programming language, attenuated total-reflectance spectroscopy, Structured Query Language, high nitrogen content energetic material, ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy, optical device, explosive residue, explosive material, infrared spectroscopy, microscopy, vibrational spectroscopy, process chemistry, polymer physical chemistry, optics, optical microscope, optical element, molecular spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, laser, laboratory computerized analytical instrumentation, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, fluorescence, fiber optics, DNA analysis, computerized analytical instrumentation, chromatography, chemical sensor, biotechnology, Big Data Analytics, data science, machine learning, cloud computing, B2B market research