Brian A. Eckenrode is a research analytical chemist with the FBI’s Counterterrorism and Forensic Science Research Unit (CFSRU) and has been in this position for the past 20 years.  Prior to joining the research unit at the FBI’s Laboratory in Quantico Virginia, Brian was the director of research at Viking Instruments Corp. (purchased by Bruker Daltonics in 1999) where he designed and developed fieldable instrumentation for analytical applications in forensics, international chemical weapons treaty verification, and the environment.  He directed the company’s software development team and led the design and implementation of the instrument’s automated fieldable inlet system.  While at Viking Instruments, he also developed a training course for gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and was involved in training over 300 clients/students in the operation and maintenance of the company’s state-of-the-art commercial field GC-MS.

Prior to joining Viking Instruments, Brian worked as a postdoctoral research assistant at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.  While at Oak Ridge, he performed research with instrumentation for the determination of trace quantities of organics (explosives) in air, gas phase ion chemistry, and positron ionization using ion trap and ion mobility mass spectrometry.

At Michigan State, while working on his doctorate, Brian constructed and tested a new high-speed hybrid MS/MS instrument that used time array detection for full MS/MS product ion map generation on the chromatographic time scale.

Brian has been married for 34 years, has two children and one grandchild, and his hobbies include:  running/walking/hiking with his wife, playing basketball, playing guitar (in his church praise band as well as in a rock n’ roll band named ‘The Franklin Project’), and brewing beer with friends from church.