Joseph R. Swider

Biography

Dr. Swider earned a BS in Chemistry and Art History from the University of Rochester in 1991 and a PhD in Nuclear Chemistry from the University of Maryland at College Park in 1998. His doctorate research utilized a novel cold-neutron analytical technique for chemical analysis of small samples and artists’ materials. During a portion of his graduate studies he was employed by the Science Department at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. There he provided analytical support for the Conservation Department and maintained the department’s resin aging research. In 1998 he received National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD where he developed a new micro X-ray fluorescence instrument. Following his fellowship, he was employed as an Andrew W. Mellon Research Scientist of East Asian Paintings Research at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution

Research Interest

Dr. Swider has been a senior research scientist at McCrone Associates in the Electron Optics Group. He routinely uses scanning electron microscopy equipped with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (SEM/EDS) to analyze samples from art and archaeology, pharmaceutical, food, cosmetic, manufacturing, paint, polymer and forensic clients. Dr. Swider implemented and developed the micro X-ray diffraction (XRD) instrumentation to successfully analyze small particles using powder diffraction and manages the two micro-XRD instruments for McCrone. He has implemented an innovative mass spectrometry (MS) technique, Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART) – MS for the analysis of explosive residues as well as a range of pharmaceutical and industrial samples.