Hendrik Emons, Prof. Dr., is the Head of the Reference Materials Unit of the European Commissions' Joint Research Centre, Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM), located in Geel, Belgium, and Associate Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany). He is heading programmes on the development, production and certification of reference materials for a very broad range of application areas, from impact toughness of steel to proteins in human serum, from elemental to microbiological analysis and from GMO quantification to nanoparticle characterisation.

Prof. Emons studied chemistry and gained a PhD in Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry at the Martin-Luther University of Halle, Germany, in 1984 and a DSc (Habilitation) in Analytical Chemistry at the University of Leipzig in 1988. He was Docent for Analytical Chemistry at the University of Leipzig and in 1991/92, Humboldt Fellow and Visiting Professor at the University of Cincinnati, OH, USA. Afterwards he was in charge of the German Environmental Specimen Banking Project at the Research Centre Jülich (Germany), and 2001/2002 Deputy Head of the newly founded Institute for Phytosphere Research there.

He is serving in various scientific boards and advisory groups. This includes, for instance, duties as Chairman of ISO/REMCO (the ISO Committee on Reference Materials), as representative of the European Commission in the Steering Committee of VAMAS (The Versailles project on Advanced Materials And Standards) and in the Research Council of the European Metrology Research Programme (EMRP), but also in EURACHEM, at CCQM of CIPM (International Committee for Weights and Measures), the Panel of the ERM^® (European Reference Materials) co-operation, the Advisory Group "Analysis of biological materials" of the German Research Community (DFG) and in the Scientific Advisory Council for Analytical Chemistry of the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), Germany. He gained interesting experiences as one of the founding editors of RSC's "Journal of Environmental Monitoring", and is currently serving in the boards of journals such as "Accreditation and Quality Assurance" and "Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry".

His research interests developed over the years are spanning a wide range of topics covering mainly Analytical Chemistry and Metrology (from electroanalysis and trace element speciation to bioanalysis, from standardisation and metrology to reference materials), Environmental Chemistry (from biomonitoring concepts to specimen banking) and Electrochemistry (from molecular interfacial structures and scanning probe microscopies to sensors).

 

 

L. De Baets, P. Van Iwaarden, N. Meeus, H. Schimmel, W. Philipp, H. Emons. First certified reference materials for molecular fingerprinting of two approved probiotic Bacillus strains. Int. J. Food Microbiol. 129 (2009) 16-20

 

W. Broothaerts, Ph. Corbisier, H. Schimmel, S. Trapmann, S. Vincent, H. Emons. A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP839) in the adh1 reference gene affects the quantitation of genetically modified maize. J. Agr. Food Chem. 56 (2008) 8825-8831

 

B. Toussaint, H. Schimmel, C.L. Klein, M. Wiergowski, H. Emons. Towards the certification of the purity of calibrant reference materials for thyroid hormones: a chicken and egg dilemma.
J. Chromatogr. A 1156 (2007) 236-248

 

H. Emons. The use of reference materials in international reference measurement systems and for comparison of analytical data. In: A. Fajgelj, M. Belli, U. Sansone (Eds.) Combining and Reporting Analytical Results, Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, 2007, pp. 205-215

 

H. Emons. The ‘RM family’ – Identification of all of its members. Accred. Qual. Assur. 10 (2006) 690-691                                                       

 

H. Emons, T.P.J. Linsinger, B.M. Gawlik. Reference materials: terminology and use. Can't one see the forest for the trees? Trends Anal. Chem. 23 (2004) 442-449