Ning Chen obtained his Ph.D. in 2002 at the Department of Geological Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, and worked as postdoctoral fellow at Canadian Light Source (CLS) between 2001-2003 before becoming a staff scientist there. Currently he is a senior staff scientist and the designated beamline responsible for the Hard X-Ray MicroAnalysis beamline (HXMA) at CLS. He involved to built and commissioned HXMA, and is responsible for the beamline operation and user program.  

Ning is committed to making every effort to develop the hard X-ray XAS facility at CLS as a leading center of excellence in synchrotron XAS research, developing user community at his beamline, and promoting XAS both in Canada and internationally. A hypothesis driven and theoretical modeling guided XAFS roadmap has been developed at HXMA and promoted throughout HXMA XAS user community, helping users’ projects effectively and efficiently performed at BL. Outside of his beamline responsibilities he has been appointed six adjunct faculty positions in Canada and internationally. Ning is deeply involved in supervision and training of HQP as many graduate student XAS users and visiting scientists at his beamline can attest to, and has collaborated in many scientific and industrial XAS user projects. He has given 40 invited synchrotron lectures, organized and taught 27 Mini-XAS workshops throughout Canada and worldwide since 2013, including primarily in the United States, Germany, and China. Recently, Ning has focused on providing a remote approach due to the pandemic’s physical limitations including 15 XAS Webinars to the HXMA user community since November 2020. Ning’s expertise is X-ray absorption spectroscopy and its application in material and environmental studies.