Thomas Prohaska

Thomas Prohaska

Positions

Adjunct Professor

Faculty of Science, Department of Physics and Astronomy

Contact information

Email

thomas.prohaska@ucalgary.ca

Web presence

https://aach.unileoben.ac.at/en/6616/

Background

Biography

Thomas Prohaska is Chair for General and Analytical Chemistry at the Montanuniversität Leoben, Austria. He studied technical chemistry at the Vienna University of Technology and received his PhD with summa cum laude in 1995. In the same year, he became scientific researcher at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna and was in charge to set up a laboratory for elemental trace analysis. From 1998 to 2000 he was researcher at the EC joint research center IRMM in Geel, Belgium. He returned to BOKU with a new focus on isotope ratio analysis in 2000. In 2004, he received the FWF-START award to setup a new research laboratory (VIRIS) for isotope research. He was associate professor at the BOKU from 2002-2018 before moving to Leoben. His current research focus is based on elemental and isotopic analysis using mass spectrometry, chemical imaging techniques and metrology with more than 150 peer reviewed publications. Thomas Prohaska served at several intitutions. He was for example member of the Autrian Academy of Sciences and is cureetnly secretetary of theof the IUPAC Commission on Isotopic Abundances and Atomic Weights. In 2018 he was visiting researcher at the University of Calgary.

Research

Areas of Research

Elemental and isotope ratio analysis (MP-AES, ICP-QMS, ICP-SFMS, MC ICP-MS, TIMS)
Development and application of advanced analytical methods in the area of chemical imaging
Aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem research (tracing via isotope ratio analysis)
Fundamental processes in ICP-MS (instrumental isotopic fractionation, interferences, etc.)
Chemical metrology (measurement uncertainty assessment, method validation, reference materials, etc.
Development of chemical methods for the characterization of technological materials
Teaching Interests
  • General Chemistry
  • Analytical Chemistry
  • Metrology
  • Elemental and isotope ratio analysis
  • Supervision of bachelor, master and PhD students

Awards

  • Teaching Award of the students representatives (ÖH) of the Montanuniversität Leoben, 2021
  • Nomination for the Ars Docendi award for excellence in teaching, Austria, by the Montanuniversität Leoben, 2021
  • Poster (first author) award at the Plasma Winter conference 2007 in Taormina (I), 2007
  • VIENNOVATION award of the City of Vienna and the publisher group NEWS, 2006
  • START prize of the Austrian Science Fund, 2004
  • Feigl award of the ASAC, 2003
  • Poster award (first author) at the ‘European Conference on Environment, Health and Safety’, Paris (F) for ‘best illustration of the input of metrology into environmental research’, 2001

Publications

View publications