Invited speakers

Alexander Seyfarth is an x-ray spectroscopist with over 20 years of experience with XRF and XRD. Alexander holds a Master degree in Mineralogy from University Giessen (1996). Thesis work for his graduate studies was done on chemical and phase investigation of kiln deposits using XRF, EPMA, and XRD as well as Rietveld structure refinement on isolated phases. Widely traveled within Europe and the Americas, he has worked onsite to install, commission and calibrate systems ranging from Semiconductor and Cement to Mining sites.

He is acting Chief Operation and Marketing Officer of the London X-Ray Consulting Group LLC and in charge of the licensing and technical content of training materials.

Jasmin Schönenberger is a geologist and mineralogist with 20 years of experience in XRF and XRD analyses. She holds a Diploma (2004) and a Doctorate (2007) in Magmatic Petrology from the University of Tübingen, Germany. Her study focused on the occurrence of Rare Earth Elements (REE) and other critical materials in Southern Greenland using state of the art analytical techniques and designing new applications. During her academic training, she completed several international research stays, including at Queen’s University (Canada), GEUS (Denmark), and the University of St Andrews (Scotland).

After her PhD, Jasmin moved to the heart of the Australian outback to work in uranium exploration, where she supervised drilling campaigns, logged cores, and interpreted geochemical data. Seeking a return to a cleaner laboratory environment, she moved back to Germany in 2008 and joined the Bavarian Environment Agency as a Laboratory Manager. Her responsibilities included calibration, analysis, and interpretation of XRF and XRD data for projects related to mapping, geological resources and geothermal energy.

Since 2012, Jasmin has been responsible for accredited XRF and XRD analyses at the Geological Survey of Norway (NGU) in Trondheim, where she also serves as a work safety representative. She continuously optimises workflows, analytical techniques and is responsible for quality assurance. Drawing on her extensive expertise particularly in clay mineralogy, she has contributed to numerous internal and external projects, including REE exploration, K–Ar geochronology, quick-clay occurrences, quality assessment of building-materials, characterization of secondary mineral resources in mine tailings, heavy mineral analysis with XRD, and more.

Jasmin’s strong ability to analyse and organise scientific data has resulted in multiple publications in internationally peer-reviewed journals. She regularly attends scientific conferences and workshops and has served as a steering committee member of the Clay Minerals Society.

Maggi Loubser

In a career as analytical chemist spanning three decades in the Mining and Manufacturing Industry, she worked in government, academia, as well as industry and ran her own consulting company. At the beginning of 2019 she was appointed by University of Pretoria to run the new Masters Programme in Heritage Conservation, so currently she is teaching science to students with a humanities background to equip them to better understand the materials they work with in conservation and research of cultural heritage objects.