Dennis Piechota (Conservator, Fiske Center for Archaeological Research, UMass Boston) recently hosted a Bruker Elemental workshop directed by Dr. Bruce Kaiser. His kind endorsement is noted below.
I recently hosted at UMass Boston a two-day handheld XRF Workshop taught by Dr Bruce Kaiser. I expect that most of you are familiar with Bruce's workshops and if you are not I recommend you try to find one in your area or just ask Bruce if he'll do one. I introduced him as the 'Johnny Appleseed of XRF' because he has taught these workshops free of charge at hundreds of locations around the world.
Ours was an unqualified success. We had 18 participants from three universities and 2 museums. At the end of the first morning I remember looking across the room to a colleague who silently mouthed the word 'WOW!' in reaction to the clarity of instruction received on the difficult topic of radiation physics and XRF. As Bruce says he tells you everything three times in three different ways because the subject, even at the introductory level, is not easy. For instance, to teach the importance of the absorption edge in fluorescence he used the folksy analogy of how a short young man dating his tall daughter won't stand a chance while one who is slightly taller than she fares much better. He then went over the same idea graphically and conceptually but when we go to select the right KeV range for an analysis I'm sure we will all have in our minds the image of his daughter with a tall and short young man.
Besides the 'wow' other comments included, "I wish I'd brought a periodic table with me to make notes on his comments about individual elements." "The insight that elements within the same vertical group tend to vary together (e.g.: bromine with chlorine) during weathering is very useful." "I like how he took us from the daunting idea that 'everything affects everything' (in XRF analysis) to the empowering idea that you can still do good work if you think it through."
I've had help from many scientists and customer relations staff from several manufacturers of XRF analyzers and I want to thank them all, but especially Bruce, whose workshop stands apart.
Dennis
Dennis Piechota
Conservator
Fiske Center for Archaeological Research
UMass Boston
Office: 617-287-6829
pXRF for Cultural Heritage Usergroup