Dr. Nazmul Alam

I grew up in Bangladesh and completed my undergraduate training in chemistry before a UNESCO research fellowship took me to the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Graduate work followed at Western University, then a Ph.D. at the University of Waterloo in the lab of Prof. Janusz Pawliszyn, the inventor of solid-phase microextraction (SPME) and one of the most cited analytical chemists of the last forty years.

After my Ph.D. I moved through several industry roles: bioanalytical work at a contract research organization, high-resolution Orbitrap mass spectrometry for environmental contaminant analysis at the Ontario Ministry of Environment, and method development for natural health products. Then DECIEM, the parent company of The Ordinary, where I led LC-MS/MS and HPLC method development for cosmetic active ingredients in a cGMP environment.

That path across four sectors shaped how I teach. Most analytical chemists spend their career inside one industry. I learned what is genuinely universal (the troubleshooting logic, the documentation standards, the relationship between method development and regulatory expectation) and what is sector-specific. That distinction is the core of everything I teach.

Today I run workshops for chemists at two stages: students and early-career chemists figuring out how industry works, and working analysts who need a better troubleshooting framework or more confidence defending their method choices. I also take on consulting projects with pharma QC teams, cosmetic brands, and analytical labs that need method development or validation support.

18 peer-reviewed papers. 1,900+ citations. h-index 19. 200+ scientists trained. I still do bench work, which matters: the workshops and consulting are grounded in what actually happens in the lab.