Bob Burk

Some students have asked who I am, what I do, etc, so here goes...

I am a Carleton "lifer". I came here from Montreal in 1975 to attend "Q-year" at Carleton, which allowed me to avoid doing 2 years in CEGEP before University. Q-year was OK, so I decided to stay do a B.Sc. (honours) in chemistry.  My fourth year project was done in the lab of Don Wiles (Don is now retired, but still comes in to work every day at Carleton.) It was entitled "The Design and Testing of a Multiwire Proportional Counter. I graduated in 1980.

I was married in the spring of 1980. Since my wife had a good job in Ottawa, we stayed here and I started an M.Sc. in chemistry, also in Don's lab. This time, the thesis subject was inorganic analytical chemistry, specifically the coprecipitation of thorium with barium sulfate.

This work was in the area of radiochemistry, or the chemistry of radioactive species and gave me the experience I needed to get a job at Eldorado Nuclear Ltd., which had its R&D labs in Ottawa. There, I researched the chemistry behind the conversion of uranium ore into nuclear products such as UO₂, UF₆ and uranium metal. I was with Eldorado from 1982 to 1987, when I decided to go back to school to get a Ph.D. I considered chemical engineering, but decided that chemistry was still my thing, and started a Ph.D. at Carleton in July of 1987 in the lab of Peeter Kruus. (Peeter is now retired also.) My thesis was concerned with the extraction of organic species from the surface of environmental solids using high pressure carbon dioxide.

I graduated in 1991. At that time, the Chemistry Department was starting a new venture called the "Centre for Analytical and Environmental Chemistry". I took a job as the manager of the Centre, doing contract research and managing the core lab of the Centre used by grad students and other contract workers. In 1993 I became an instructor and began teaching various chemistry courses in the Department. In 1995 I became an assistant professor, and in 2000, an associate professor.

I was the Director of the College of Natural Sciences from 2003-2006, which comprised the Departments of Chemistry, Physics, Biology and Earth Sciences, and the Institutes of Biochemistry, Environmental Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies. The College provided the administrative functions for these Departments and Institutes. I was also the Undergraduate Advisor in the Chemistry Department. I am now the Chairman of the Chemistry Department.

My research lab is in the Steacie Building. We are developing new analytical methods for organic species in water and researching the physical chemistry of supercritical fluid systems (a spin-off from my own thesis work).

During the academic year, I spend roughly one third of my time in my lab, one third doing administration, and one third teaching CHEM 1000.