Julia Laskin
Julia Laskin is the William F. and Patty J. Miller Professor of Analytical Chemistry at Purdue University. Her research is focused on the fundamental understanding of ion-surface collisions, understanding of phenomena underlying chemical analysis of large molecules in complex heterogeneous environments, and the development of new instrumentation and methods in preparative and imaging mass spectrometry. Early life and education. Laskin was born in Russia. She has said that she had a very good chemistry teacher at high school. She moved to Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, where she earned a master's of science in  1990. When Perestroika opened the borders and allowed people to leave Russia, Laskin and her husband left the country. Laskin moved to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she worked toward a doctoral degree under the supervision of Chava Lifshitz. She earned her PhD in 1998 and moved to the University of Delaware, where she worked as a postdoctoral scholar in chemistry. In 2000, Laskin joined the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow. She was appointed a Research Scientist at the United States Department of Energy Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory in 2003. Research and career. Laskin works in  gas phase ion chemistry. She has been involved with the development of analytical techniques to better characterize synthetic and natural polymers. She showed that the soft-landing of mass-selected ions is a powerful technique to study catalysts. She has also worked on the development of bioanalytical and environmental mass spectrometry. Laskin is an editor of the "International Journal of Mass Spectrometry". She is Chair of the American Chemical Society Joint Board Council Committee on Publications.