Do I need access to an instrument?

Not for the fundamentals. That is the point of teaching them online with a simulator: you can change the flow rate, the particle size or the column dimensions and watch the separation move, which no real instrument lets you do safely or quickly. The hands-on parts need hardware, and that is what the in-person days are for.

I am not a chemist. Can I still follow it?

Yes, if you have a science degree and you are running or about to run an HPLC or LC-MS. Biologists inherit these instruments all the time. I teach the chromatography, not first-year chemistry.

Dates and prices for the next sessions are being set. Tell me which subject you need and I will let you know when it is scheduled.

Is there a certificate?

You get a written record of what was covered and a take-home reference built around it. I am not an accrediting body and I will not pretend otherwise.

Yes, and I can invoice a company directly. If your lab wants the whole team trained instead, that is usually better done in your own lab on your own instruments.

— Learn

Learn the chromatography, not just the buttons.

Most people running an HPLC were shown which button to press and left to work out the rest. I teach the part underneath: why a peak moves, why recovery drops, and what to change when it does. My PhD was in the lab that invented SPME.

200+ scientists trained. 18 peer-reviewed papers, 1,900+ citations.

What the training actually looks like

A short walk through the simulator and the kind of problem we work on.

Ways to learn

Online

Fundamentals, live, without an instrument

Retention, resolution, plate count, and what the van Deemter curve is actually telling you. I teach it live using a browser chromatography simulator, so we change the flow rate or the particle size and watch the separation move in front of you. No instrument time, no queue, and it works from anywhere.

Best for the theory, and for anyone without instrument access.

Workshops

Live sessions, open to anyone

Two tracks. A technical track on method development and troubleshooting for people already working at the bench, and a career track for chemists moving from academic work into an industry lab.

See both tracks →

If your lab wants a whole team trained on your own instruments, that is a different thing and it happens in your lab. See how that works.

What it covers

Sample preparation

SPME, SPE, liquid-liquid extraction and protein precipitation. Choosing the right one for the matrix, and recognising when poor recovery is a prep problem rather than an instrument problem.

HPLC

Gradients, columns, retention and resolution, method development logic rather than recipe-following, and moving a method to another system without it changing underneath you.

LC-MS and LC-MS/MS

Ionisation, sensitivity, ion suppression and matrix effects, quantitation you can defend, and keeping a source clean enough that yesterday's results still mean something.

General analytical chemistry

Calibration, what a number is actually worth, reading a result critically, and the documentation habits that survive an audit.

Who it's for

Graduate students and finishing PhDs who need chromatography for the job they want
Chemists and biologists trained outside Canada, moving into an Ontario lab
Career changers coming into pharma, food, cannabis or environmental testing
Analysts whose lab has an instrument but nobody who was taught it
Labs sending one or two people rather than booking a day on site

What people said afterwards

Attendee quotes go here. The workshop testimonials are on the workshops page in the meantime.

What you keep

Every session ends with a short written reference built around what we actually worked on, a method checklist or a troubleshooting guide. It is the thing you go back to three months later when the same problem turns up again.

Dates and prices

The next sessions are being scheduled. Tell me which subject you need and whether you want it online or hands-on, and I will let you know when it runs.

Tell me what you need to learn Or start with the free cheatsheet →

Questions I get asked

Do I need access to an instrument?: Not for the fundamentals. That is the point of teaching them online with a simulator: you can change the flow rate, the particle size or the column dimensions and watch the separation move, which no real instrument lets you do safely or quickly. The hands-on parts need hardware, and that is what the in-person days are for.
I am not a chemist. Can I still follow it?: Yes, if you have a science degree and you are running or about to run an HPLC or LC-MS. Biologists inherit these instruments all the time. I teach the chromatography, not first-year chemistry.
What does it cost?: Dates and prices for the next sessions are being set. Tell me which subject you need and I will let you know when it is scheduled.
Is there a certificate?: You get a written record of what was covered and a take-home reference built around it. I am not an accrediting body and I will not pretend otherwise.
Can my employer pay?: Yes, and I can invoice a company directly. If your lab wants the whole team trained instead, that is usually better done in your own lab on your own instruments.

Who you're working with

I did my Ph.D. in Janusz Pawliszyn's lab at Waterloo, where SPME was invented, and I've spent the 14 years since in pharmaceutical, CRO, environmental and natural-product labs. Most of that time was method development and validation on LC-MS and HPLC. I've trained 200+ scientists and published 18 peer-reviewed papers. Based in Mississauga, on-site across the GTA, remote elsewhere.

More about me