My scientific interests include aspects of crystallographic preferred orientation (or texture) development in powders, X-ray and neutron powder diffraction, synchrotron powder diffraction, Rietveld modelling, pole-figure and residual strain measurements; R-phase transformations in titanium-nickel (NiTi) shape memory alloys; trace elements and quantifications of natural diamond inclusions using synchrotron micro X-ray luorescence and micro X-ray diffraction techniques. Most recently, I am interested in studying the crystal structure of minerals at high-pressure and high temperature in-situ using world-wide neutron powder diffraction facility.


I have extensive experience in neutron diffraction, originally at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization (ANSTO) facilities at Lucas Heights near Sydney, Australia, then at the NIST Center for Neutron Research in Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA, LANSCE Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, USA, Berlin Neutron Scattering Center (BENSC), Hahn-Meitner-Institut, Germany and FRG-1, GKSS-Forschungszentrum, Geesthacht, Germany and Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) Neutrons for Science, Grenoble, France.

Part of my job at the Virginia Tech COMPRES (COnsortium for Materials Properties Research in Earth Sciences) project is to educate the community in the use of neutrons for research in the Earth Sciences in advance of the Spallation Neutron Source coming on-line at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2006.

For more details please see the Compres Neutrons web site.

Download data files from D20 ILL