Dr. Alistair Brown joined the Department of Soil Science as Manitoba Analytical Solutions (MASS) Lab Director and Assistant Professor, on October 1, 2024. His interest in analytical chemistry was sparked during his undergraduate studies when a course on ecotoxicology shifted his career focus. Today, Alistair explores the fate and toxicity of environmental contaminants in soils and water, including UV filters, pesticides, and perfluorinated compounds.
Tell us about yourself
I’ve been with my wife Kendra for 23 years, and I have two sons, Asher and Jude, who are 16 and 13 respectively, and our dog Ollie who turns two tomorrow. I am a mass spectrometry method validation specialist. I got my BSc (Biochemistry) from the University of Winnipeg in 2013, and PhD (Chemistry) from the University of Manitoba in 2019. In my post-doc, I developed analytical methods for federal compliance under the Cannabis Act (2018), after which time I worked with Environment and Climate Change Canada studying the impact of different retention structures on nutrient loading into the Red River Basin. During the pandemic, I made several courses for the Department of Environment and Geography, after which I was solicited to create the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences’ Manitoba Analytical Solutions (MASS) Lab in the Richardson Centre for Food Technology and Research. Now I have made numerous additional methods for several faculties, in addition to Health Canada.