Dr Court Sandau
Dr. Sandau is the principal and senior chemist at Chemistry Matters Inc (CMI). CMI is a niche forensic and chemistry litigation firm. Dr. Sandau has worked on arson investigations and conducted ignitable liquid residue (ILR) analysis and interpretation since 2011 working on some of the largest fire investigations in Canadian history.
Since 2015, Dr. Sandau and Chemistry Matters have provided analysis and interpretation of ILR for fire debris samples. These samples have come from investigations conducted by various private and public entities such as the Government of Alberta Office of the Fire Commissioner and Wildfire Service, the BC Wildfire Service, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the Calgary Police Service, the Calgary Fire Department, as well as various insurance companies and independent investigation companies.
Dr. Sandau has been involved in over 250 arson investigations which involved thousands of samples for wildfires, vehicle fires, and structural fires (residential and commercial). Dr. Sandau has pioneered the use of advanced analytical techniques such as GCxGC-TOFMS for use in arson investigations with data that has been accepted in the courtroom for successful prosecutions.
Dr. Sandau continues to research and develop new approaches to ignitable liquid residue analysis through graduate students and his adjunct professor status at Mount Royal University. Dr. Sandau regularly lectures at conferences and provides training seminars for fire investigation professionals.
Since 2015, Dr. Sandau and Chemistry Matters have provided analysis and interpretation of ILR for fire debris samples. These samples have come from investigations conducted by various private and public entities such as the Government of Alberta Office of the Fire Commissioner and Wildfire Service, the BC Wildfire Service, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the Calgary Police Service, the Calgary Fire Department, as well as various insurance companies and independent investigation companies.
Dr. Sandau has been involved in over 250 arson investigations which involved thousands of samples for wildfires, vehicle fires, and structural fires (residential and commercial). Dr. Sandau has pioneered the use of advanced analytical techniques such as GCxGC-TOFMS for use in arson investigations with data that has been accepted in the courtroom for successful prosecutions.
Dr. Sandau continues to research and develop new approaches to ignitable liquid residue analysis through graduate students and his adjunct professor status at Mount Royal University. Dr. Sandau regularly lectures at conferences and provides training seminars for fire investigation professionals.
Dr Carrie McDonough
Carrie McDonough is a chemical oceanographer and analytical chemist working at the intersection of environmental chemistry and chemical biology. She received her B.Sc. in Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and her Ph.D. in Chemical Oceanography from the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography (URI GSO). She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Colorado School of Mines developing high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) methods to identify and measure per/polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in biological samples.
The McDonough Lab at CMU investigates organic pollutants, how they are transported through the environment, where they end up, and their potential impacts on water quality, environmental quality, and human and ecosystem health. They use HRMS, ion mobility spectrometry, and other advanced analytical strategies to expand detection and deepen understanding of impacts of undiscovered and/or overlooked pollutants. McDonough’s work emphasizes the importance of evaluating bioavailability, bioaccumulation, and biological transformation of organic contaminants in environmental risk assessment.
Dr Roxana Sühring
Roxana Sühring is an Assistant Professor in Analytical Environmental Chemistry at the Department for Chemistry and Biology at Toronto Metropolitan University. She holds a doctor of natural sciences (Dr. rer. nat.) degree in environmental chemistry from the Leuphana University in Lueneburg and conducted postdoctoral research in Germany, Canada, and Sweden.
Her interdisciplinary research encompasses the development of innovative analytical strategies for the characterization of plastic pollutants in environmental samples, including a Tri-council funded New Frontiers in Research project on the analysis of chemical fingerprints from microplastics. She has led a regulatory scientist team at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (UK) and has been a policy advisor to the Netherland’s delegation for the OSPAR Offshore Industry Committee and the UK Ministry of Defence regarding potentially polluting shipwrecks.
Her interdisciplinary research encompasses the development of innovative analytical strategies for the characterization of plastic pollutants in environmental samples, including a Tri-council funded New Frontiers in Research project on the analysis of chemical fingerprints from microplastics. She has led a regulatory scientist team at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (UK) and has been a policy advisor to the Netherland’s delegation for the OSPAR Offshore Industry Committee and the UK Ministry of Defence regarding potentially polluting shipwrecks.
Dr Zhenyu Tian
Zhenyu Tian is an assistant professor at Northeastern University. He received his Ph.D. from UNC-Chapel Hill, where he studied the transformation products and co-occurring pollutants of PAHs in contaminated soil. During his postdoc research at the University of Washington Tacoma, he applied non-target analysis to identify emerging contaminants in water and biota. With the research group at UWT, he identified 6PPD-quinone, a ubiquitous tire rubber chemical that kills coho salmon via urban stormwater. As an environmental chemist, Zhenyu is interested in the fate, transport, and remediation of organic contaminants
Dr Shane Snyder
Dr. Shane Snyder is the José Domingo Pérez Foundation Chair and Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), USA. His research has focuses on water quality, treatment, and sustainability, which resulted in over 300 published manuscripts with over 38,000 citations. He served as a lead researcher for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, Las Vegas, then as a as a Professor and Center Director at the University of Arizona, and has worked in Singapore as a Professor at both the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University for over 13 years. He is the Editor-in-Chief for the American Chemical Society journal, Environmental Science & Technology Water. Prof. Snyder is a Fellow of the International Water Association and a Board-Certified Environmental Scientist (BCES) by Eminence from the American Academy of Engineers and Scientists.
In 2021, Prof. Snyder was awarded the Clarke Prize, broadly considered as one of the most prestigious awards for outstanding achievements in water science and technology. He is one of the early pioneers and foremost experts in potable water reuse, having served on advisory boards for the US EPA, the World Health Organization, and numerous projects around the world. He is currently serving on the advisory panel for the Helmholtz Institute in Germany and a member of the Research Assessment Exercise for Institutes of Higher Learning in Hong Kong.
In 2021, Prof. Snyder was awarded the Clarke Prize, broadly considered as one of the most prestigious awards for outstanding achievements in water science and technology. He is one of the early pioneers and foremost experts in potable water reuse, having served on advisory boards for the US EPA, the World Health Organization, and numerous projects around the world. He is currently serving on the advisory panel for the Helmholtz Institute in Germany and a member of the Research Assessment Exercise for Institutes of Higher Learning in Hong Kong.