Meet our researchers
Faculty and Research Associates
Dr. Michael Wieser (he/him)
Mike Wieser investigates the interactions of metals in living and non-living systems by studying changes in the isotopic compositions of biochemically significant elements. Developing analytical methods in isotope ratio mass spectrometry is the foundation of Mike’s research. He may be found adventuring into disciplines including nuclear physics, analytical chemistry and sometimes biology and the environmental sciences.
Dr. Kerri Miller (she/her)
Kerri Miller’s research focuses on metal isotopes in the body (Cu, Zn, Pb) and how the amounts and isotopic composition of these metals change due to metabolic interruptions or environmental exposure. Currently she is working on the development of methods to push the limits of multicollector ICP-MS detection to enable the quantification of femtogram amounts of isotopes in biological samples.
Dr. Anika Retzmann (she/her)
Anika Retzmann specializes in in elemental and isotopic analyses and their application to address research questions in the fields of archaeometry and biomedicine. To this end, she develops and applies advanced analytical methods based mainly on (multicollector) ICP-MS and TIMS. Currently she is working on the automation of analyte purification to increase the sample throughput in isotopic analyses (i.e., Ca, Cu, Zn, Pb) for clinical settings.
Graduate Students
Behnam Ashrafkhani (he/him)
Behnam is a Ph.D. student in our lab. Before coming to Calgary, he completed 2 years of a postgraduate program in Photonics at Shahid Beheshti University, so his academic background is in Laser and Optics. He has started his project at University of Calgary from 2019 in collaboration with TRIUMF’s Ion Trap for Atomic and Nuclear Science (TITAN) in Vancouver. He is going to design and install a laser ionization source connecting to Multiple-Reflection Time Of Flight Mass Spectrometer (MR-TOF-MS). His research is particularly focused on development of an isotopic bio-dosimeter to assess individual risk of radon gas exposure; thus, he is going to quantify radon daughter products in biological tissues.
Farnaz Nasehi (she/her)
Farnaz Nasehi Kalajahi is a master’s student at the University of Calgary. She is a physicist who is passionate about the application of radiation physics in medicine and industry.
During her master’s program at the University of Tabriz, she commenced the research on "Study of the Enhancement of Nanocomposite Materials for Gamma-Ray Shielding". She designed and built a shielding material for gamma-rays that had a higher attenuation coefficient and lower weight than the usual type of shielding materials such as lead and concrete. She also did a simulation with MCNP 2.6 code for the composite of ZnO in polyacrylamide matrix as a shielding material and calculate the mass and linear attenuation coefficient.
After her master’s degree, she contributed to many projects including radiation spectroscopy, detection, and doing simulation for detector development. In the meantime, she did some research in data analysis and machine learning with a concentration on writing code for Nuclear Physics applications.
Webmaster
Gabby Gelinas (she/her)
Gabby received a BSc (Honours) in Physics from the University of Calgary in 2023. She completed three terms with our lab, working in automated analyte purification, development of a ghost wipe sample preparation technique, and on commissioning our Elan mass spectrometer. She is now a master’s student at UBC working on trigger system comissioning for the DarkLight experiment at TRIUMF.
Alumni
Aaron Wilkins (he/him)
Aaron Wilkins was a student and research assistant in the Isotope Science Laboratory from 2017 through 2020. Aaron's primary research area was in the study of online sulfur isotope analysis through the coupling of an elemental analyzer with MC-ICP-MS. His undergraduate and master's degrees were in the areas of geophysics and his thesis was on the mathematical modelling of copper uptake by yeast. Aaron is now applying his skills as a data analyst and grant specialist with Benevity.
Adam Mayer (he/him)
Adam completed his MSc and PhD working in the Stable Isotope Lab with Mike Wieser. During his MSc, he performed high-precision and high-accuracy measurements of the isotopic composition of molybdenum. The results were published and accepted by the IUPAC CIAAW for the official atomic weight of molybdenum. For his PhD, he worked in collaboration with the TITAN experiment at TRIUMF, the JYFLTRAP experiment at the University of Jyvaskyla, and Dr. Dieter Frekers from the University of Munster on a study of the double-beta decay of 96Zr. We used ion trap techniques to measure the Q values of the three relevant decays involving 96Zr, 96Nb and 96Mo. These results were combined with an MC-ICPMS measurement of the half-life of 96Zr->96Mo in a 2.68 Ga zircon sample to develop a significantly improved understanding of this important double-beta decaying isotope. Since completing his PhD, he has spent time developing his teaching skills and is now a post-doctoral researcher at TRIUMF working to characterize and develop new cryogenic dark matter detector technologies for the SuperCDMS collaboration.
Alex Tennant (he/him)
Alex completed his MSc in 2017 where he worked on the computational modelling of copper isotopes in protein interactions in the liver cell.
Courtney Kruschel (she/her)
Courtney completed her MSc in physics in 2021 where she studied the measurement of the isotopic composition of Mo in petroleum coke samples from the Athabasca Oil Sands Region. This work included assessment of the viability of the Mo isotopic composition as a tracer for petroleum coke inputs into the environment. Courtney is still working at the UofC campus; now as a undergraduate teaching lab technician for the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
Dorothy Walls (she/her)
Dorothy completed her MSc in Physics in 2023 where her research focused on analyzing the stable isotopic composition of calcium in biological materials to understand metabolic processes. Before becoming a master's student, she completed two undergraduate degrees at the University of Calgary: BSc in Mathematics with concentration in Statistics and BSc in Physics (Honours) where she laid the groundwork for her MSc research.
Fwziah Mohammed
Fwziah completed her PhD with our lab in 2020. She worked on the development of sensitive and reliable analytical methods to measure zinc isotopic composition and applied these tools to study the zinc isotopic composition in the Southern Ocean as a possible micronutrient for phytoplankton.
Jake Flowerdew (he/him)
For Jake's masters degree at the University of Calgary he worked on optimizing the ion transport of the ion source of the Triton mass spectrometer. This involved using the simulation software SIMION to model the ion source and particle trajectories. As a result of this work, he went on to commission a multi-purpose ion source at the TITAN experiment at TRIUMF. He is now studying for his PhD in accelerator physics at the University of Oxford.
Former Undergraduate Students
Cam Worthy, NSERC Summer Research Assistant (2023)
Gabby Gelinas, NSERC Summer Research Assistant (2021), CINP Summer Research Assistant (2023)
Liam Corbin, Physics 599 Student (2023)
Eshan Minhas, Physics 598 Student (2022-2023)
Brennon Elder, Physics 598 Student (2022-2023)
Lin Zhongchan, Physics 599 Student (2022)
Wajeeha Hasan, Physics 599 Student (2021)
Tia Nebeling, NSERC Summer Research Assistant (2020, 2021), Physics 599 Student (2021)
Roland Storm, Summer Research Assistant (2019), Physics 599 Student (2021)
Sigi Peschke, Summer Research Assistant (2020), Physics 599 Student (2020)
Ferdous Akbary, Physics 599 Student (2020)
Michael Janos, Physics 599 Student (2020)
Dorothy Walls, Physics 598 Student (2018-2019)
Honorary Members
Alister
Though Alister may not be very involved in science (he just likes the outfits), he uses his intellect in other ways and is a master of tricking Gabby and her family into giving him a second lunch.
Björn
Despite his small size, Björn has a big sense of adventure! He's spent the last 25 years travelling across Europe in search of new dogs to befriend and has recently started taking chemistry classes.
Marley
Marley is very ambitious and eager to help out the group. She never misses a Zoom meeting so she can be there to supervise and keep everyone on task!
Mirela
Coming from AARCS, Mirela joined the team in May 2024 as a canine research specialist. Her youthful exuberance is bringing new energy to the group and she promises to be the best dog possible, provided daily allocations of cookies are provided.
Piper
Piper is not much of a people person, but what she lacks in personability, she makes up for in roundness! Like all of us here at the Atom Mass Lab, she tends to be very curious about things and loves to explore outside.