At the Eurachem General Assembly in May 2021, two of our existing members – Kyriacos Tsimillis (Cyprus) and Wolfhard Wegscheider (Austria) – completed their 3-year terms of office. Bertil Magnusson also took the decision to step down from the EC having completed two years of his 3-year term. We thank Bertil (a former Eurachem Chair) for his contributions to the EC over many years and hope he will remain active in Eurachem for years to come.

To fill the vacancies, prior to the General Assembly meeting on 20-21 May, a vote of the Eurachem members was held to fill these three positions. As a result of this vote, Kyriacos and Wolfhard were re-elected, and Helen Cantwell (Ireland) joined the EC.

Below you will find short introductions to the EC members starting their terms of office in May 2021.

Helen Cantwell

Helen has a degree in analytical science and a PhD in biochemistry from Dublin City University. After graduating, Helen moved to Teagasc, the Agriculture and Food Development Authority in Ireland, where she worked as a Research Officer in the area of veterinary drug residues. Her work involved method development and validation along with routine analysis of samples in an accredited, regulatory laboratory. An affinity for quality led Helen to take on the role of Quality Manager, managing the laboratory’s accreditation to ISO/IEC 17025.

Helen moved to the State Laboratory in 2015 and, since 2017, has worked in the area of animal feedingstuffs, fertilisers and limestones where she heads the Animal Feedingstuffs Section. The Section provides an analytical and advisory service to the competent authority in Ireland, is designated as an Official Laboratory under Regulation (EU) 2017/625 and hosts the National Reference Laboratory function for additives for use in animal nutrition and for metals and nitrogenous compounds in feed.

Helen’s participation in Eurachem began in 2016 when she joined the committee of Eurachem Ireland. That same year she joined the Eurachem Method Validation Working Group and has served as Vice-chair/Secretary ever since. Through her work with Eurachem, Helen has been involved in the organisation of workshops, including the 2018 Eurachem week held in Dublin, and has been involved in the publication of a number of guidance documents. She has served as one of the Irish national representatives to Eurachem since 2019.

Helen said “So much is dependent on the results of analytical measurements so the quality of those measurements is essential. I am glad to be part of Eurachem and to be able to make a real contribution to the work of the group in promoting quality in analytical measurements.”

Kyriacos Tsimillis

Kyriacos holds a BSc and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Athens (1971, 1977 respectively). His postgraduate studies were carried out at the Nuclear Research Center “Demokritos” (1972-1975). After a 6-year period of lecturing at the Physical Chemistry Department of the University of Athens (1975-1980), he was involved in standardisation, quality and environmental issues as well as certification activities in Cyprus for 20 years followed by 12 years of active involvement in accreditation activities, starting from the introduction of the accreditation system and as a lead assessor for laboratories and inspection bodies. He was also actively involved in European co-operation for Accreditation (EA) activities and the peer evaluation procedure.

He served as the Coordinator (2005-2009) and the Director (2009-2013) of the Cyprus Accreditation Body.  He is an active member of the Pancyprian Union of Chemists (PUC), having served as its Chair (2003-2009); he is currently (2014 - ) the coordinator of the Division of Quality Assurance. Since 1997 he has represented Cyprus in Eurachem, and for many years has been a member of the Executive Committee (including a two-year period as its Chair from 2008-2010). Kyriacos also represented Cyprus in Eurolab and the Euromed Quality Programme. He has published a number of research papers, review articles and chapters in books on quality. He was ben an invited speaker at numerous seminars, workshops and conferences and has organised many training activities and awareness-raising events.

He keeps a weekly column in a newspaper and since January 2017 has been an elected member of the Nicosia Municipality. In his free time he loves taking photos and drawing cartoons.

Wolfhard Wegscheider

Wolfhard is Professor of General and Analytical Chemistry at the Montanuniversitaet Leoben, Austria. He received his education from the Graz University of Technology, majoring in Technical Chemistry with a specialisation in Biochemistry and Food Chemistry. His diploma thesis and doctoral thesis were in Analytical Chemistry with an emphasis on trace analysis and environmental analysis. As Fulbright Scholar he worked in Denver, CO, mainly on energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. Much of his research centres on the development of chemometric procedures for analytical chemical problems. He is co-author of the textbook on Analytical Chemistry featuring the DAC FECS-Curriculum and a member of the editorial board and contributor to the Encyclopedia of Analytical Sciences (Academic Press). In addition to his Eurachem activities, Wolfhard is member of several learned societies such as GDCh, GOECh and Co-operation on International Traceability in Analytical Chemistry (CITAC). He is a founding member of the Working Group on Education and Training and the Working Group on Measurement Uncertainty and Traceability. In both, Eurachem and CITAC he also served as Chair. After a term as President, he is currently Member of the Board of Directors of the Austrian Society of Analytical Chemistry – ASAC. In 2010 he was appointed Fellow of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).

Wolfhard is a consultant to the Austrian Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism, a lead auditor in the Austrian Accreditation of Laboratories System and an Editorial Advisor of Journals such as Mikrochimica Acta, Spectrochimica Acta Electronica, Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems, and Accreditation and Analytical Quality Assurance. From 1995 to 2001 he served as Dean of Graduate Studies of Montanuniversitaet Leoben, and from 2003 to 2011 as Rektor (President) of this Institution. Presently he is chair of the Board of Trustees of OeAD GmbH, the Austrian Agency for International Cooperation in Education and Research, and a member of the Statistics Committee of AOAC International for the period 2016-2019.

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Published: Wednesday, 21 July 2021 14:40

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