Analytical Research Forum 2025 (ARF25)

Dr Andrew Brown is the Science Area Leader of the Air Quality and Aerosol Metrology Group at the National Physical Laboratory (the UK’s National Measurement Institute). Andrew’s work focusses on traceable methods for the physical and chemical characterisation of particles in air, and his current research interests include non-exhaust vehicle emissions, measurements of lung deposited surface area and measuring environmental DNA in air for biodiversity monitoring.
 
Andrew oversees the NPL’s technical delivery of three UK ambient air quality monitoring networks for the Environment Agency and Defra, for which the NPL Air Quality Team was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry’s 2024 Technical Excellence Prize.

Anthony Gachanja is a Professor in Analytical and Environmental Chemistry at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) in Kenya with experience spanning over three decades. He is also actively engaged in government bodies and private sector (industry) offering Analytical and Instrumental skills
Professor Gachanja obtained a degree in Chemistry (Bachelor of Science) from the University of Nairobi, Masters in Analytical Science and PhD in Chemistry from University of Hull in 1983 and 1991.  He then proceeded for a 3-year postdoctoral research at the University of Plymouth.  
He is involved in analytical environmental research, in particular in use of separation techniques and mass spectrometry for analysis of environmental matrices. He has been a resource person in instrumental trainings GCMS and LCMSMS that are sponsored by the RSC training more than 700 scientists from all regions of Africa. He has co-authored an GC-MS book, “GC-MS How do I get the best results?”, published by the RSC. He is one of the RSCs 175 faces of chemistry and featured in 2020 year's Power List as one of the Top 100 most influential people in analytical science over the past decade and received an honorary DSc from University of Plymouth in 2022.
He is passionate about the development of Analytical skills with a strong belief that chemical analytical skills are key and vital for both the developed and developing economies.

Dr Helena Rapp Wright earned her BSc in Chemistry at the University of La Laguna (ULL, Spain) in 2014 and an MRes in Forensic Science at King’s College London (KCL, UK) in 2016. During her BSc and MRes, she undertook an industrial placement and two research projects focused on analytical chemistry. Following her MRes study, she worked at LGC (Fordham, UK) for two years in the small molecules department for bioanalytical sciences. Her work focused on developing analytical techniques for the identification and quantification of drugs from clinical trials, as well as their sample analysis. In 2018, she successfully secured a PhD studentship sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Ireland. Her PhD was held in the School of Chemical Sciences at Dublin City University (DCU) and part-time at KCL, researching contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in environmental water samples. Her PhD was completed in 2021, and she is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College London within the Emerging Chemical Contaminant Group. Helena (or Dr Rapp Wright) is also a member of Royal Society of Chemistry. Her research interests lie in the broad areas of analytical and environmental chemistry, mainly sustainability, wastewater analysis, and contaminants of emerging concern.