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’s research focuses on analyzing the elemental and stable metal isotopic composition of biological systems and applying these insights to research questions in environmental science, archaeometry, biomedicine, and the life sciences. To this end, she develops advanced analytical tools, including fully automated analyte purification procedures and high-precision mass spectrometry, to investigate the roles of essential elements in biological systems through their isotopic signatures. Most recently, Anika pioneered the integration of the MICAP ion source, which uses a nitrogen plasma, with high-precision multi-collector mass spectrometry for stable metal isotopic analysis.
Dr. Behnam Ashrafkhani (he/him)
Behnam completed his Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Calgary in 2025 and is now a postdoctoral researcher with the Atom Mass Lab and the TITAN facility at TRIUMF. He previously earned his M.Sc. in Photonics from Shahid Beheshti University, specializing in lasers and optics.
His doctoral research, begun in 2019 in collaboration with TITAN, focused on designing and testing a laser ionization source for integration with the Multiple-Reflection Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer (MR-TOF-MS). This work advanced isotope science for medical and forensic applications, including the development of a novel radon-based isotopic biodosimeter.
As a postdoc, Behnam is furthering these efforts by implementing the laser ion source on TITAN and coupling it to the MR-TOF-MS to enable highly sensitive measurements of radon decay products.
Graduate Students
Gabby Gelinas (she/her)
Gabby is a PhD student with our group working on the characterization of our MC-MICAP-MS instrument. During her undergraduate program (BSc Hons., 2023) she worked with our lab on instrument commissioning and development of an automated ion exchange procedure. She then completed an MSc in particle physics (2025) through the University of British Columbia and TRIUMF where she worked in detector development for the DarkLight collaboration. Gabby is also our website maintainer.
Cameron Worthy (he/him)
Cameron is an M.Sc. student currently studying at the University of Calgary. His research concerns further understanding exposure of 222Rn, and further developing analytical methods to understand this. 210Pb is a sensitive indicator of 222Rn exposure, as it is a daughter product of radioactive decay for 222Rn, and it accumulates in keratinous tissues such as toenails. By comparing the relative quantity of210Pb in drinking-water versus 210Pb levels in keratinous tissue, his research aims to understand how drinking-water may contribute to total 222Rn exposure in a home, which is the second leading cause of lung cancer in Canada.
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.
Farnaz Nasehi (she/her)
Farnaz Nasehi Kalajahi was 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.
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.
Former Undergraduate Students
Chloe Murr, Summer Research Assistant (2025)
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.