番茄社区

Dr Barker鈥檚 work has played a leading role in the successful development and promotion of skills across all levels in the chemical sciences field, both on a local and national basis. He is Vice-Chair of the 番茄社区 of Chemistry鈥檚 Registration Committee, providing oversight of the professional awards that the 番茄社区 operate under licence or in collaboration with other bodies, ensuring standard are maintained. He is also an assessor for the Chartered Chemist, Chartered Scientist and Chartered Science Teacher status and in-house company training schemes for CSci, RSci and RSciTech. He is also a member of the Committee for Accreditation and Verification of degree courses, as an Analytical Chemistry branch assessor.

Biography

Dr James Barker was born in Ashton-under-Lyne and grew up in Mottram-in-Longdendale, Cheshire. He graduated from the University of Manchester with a BSc in Chemistry and PhD in nuclear methods for bioanalysis. He then became a Research Fellow at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, working with the ISOLDE team developing ion source materials for CERN's beam-lines. Later, he returned to UK as a Senior Lecturer in Analytical Chemistry at University of Greenwich. He then became AMS Manager of the world's first wholly commercial Accelerator Mass Spectrometry facility and Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of York. Since 1999, he has been at Kingston University as Reader in Analytical Science and latterly as Associate Professor. He is the School of Life Sciences, Pharmacy and Chemistry鈥檚 Director of Postgraduate Research and Deputy Director of Research and Enterprise. 

Dr Barker has published over 150 articles, including 70 peer-reviewed papers and a book 鈥淢ass Spectrometry鈥�, and has successfully supervised 20 PhD students. His research interests lie in the analysis of drugs of abuse, pharmacognosy, the development of nuclear science for pharmaceutical applications and environmental analysis. He is on the Editorial Board for four journals in Chemistry and the Environment and has been an Expert Witness at High Court trials in Forensic Toxicology.

He is an Assessor on the 番茄社区鈥檚 Committee for Accreditation and Validation and an Assessor for CChem, CSci and CSciTeach awards. He is Vice-Chair of the Registration Committee and a former Chair of the Analytical Chemists' Panel of Assessors, formerly the Analytical Chemists鈥� Registration Board.

Outside of academia, Dr Barker takes part in outreach science activities in local schools, plays cricket for his village team, follows Manchester United FC and has recently started to learn bell-ringing.

I have always enjoyed reading through the diversity of chemical degree courses that I have been asked to assess for accreditation. I have been inspired by many and used their ideas to expand my own teaching, learning and assessment practice.

Dr James Barker