About the Department

Objective

This department was created in 1959 to produce well trained analytical chemists to meet the demands of industry and research organizations. The field of analytical chemistry has been advancing rapidly. To keep up with the advances, the analytical chemist must understand the fundamentals of common analytical techniques, their capabilities and their limitations. The analytical chemist must understand the problem to be solved, select the appropriate techniques to use, design the analytical experiment to provide relevant data and ensure that the data obtained is valid. Merely reporting the result of an analysis is not enough, the analytical chemist must be able to interpret the data and communicate the meaning of the results, together with the accuracy and precision (the reliability). In addition to understanding the scientific problem, the analytical chemist must also consider factors such as time limitations in providing an analysis.

Mission

The mission of this department is to produce multifaceted, problem solver-analytical chemists. Most analyses today are carried out with specially designed electronic instruments controlled by computers. Often these instruments have automated sample introduction, automated data processing and even automated sample preparation. To understand how the instrumentation operates and what information it can provide requires knowledge of chemistry, physics, mathematics, electronics, computer programming and engineering. The analytical chemist must not only know and understand analytical chemistry and instrumentation, but must also be able to serve as a problem solver to colleagues in other scientific areas. This means that the analytical chemist may need to understand materials science, metallurgy, biology, pharmacology, agricultural science, food science, environmental science and other fields. Whether one is working for government regulatory agency, a hospital, a private company, research organization or a university, analytical data must be legally defensible. It must be of known, documented quality. Record keeping, especially computer record keeping, assessing accuracy and precision, statistical handling of data, documenting and ensuring that the data meet the applicable technical standards are especially critical aspects of the job of modern analytical chemists.