Guan Huat Tan
Professor
University of Malaya
Malaysia
Biography
He started his teaching career at the University of Malaya in 1978 after completing his PhD in Analytical Chemistry from Duke University, Durham, North Carolina and was promoted to Professor in 2003. He has supervised eight PhD and six MSc students and many thesis projects on environmental analysis of organic chemical pollutants in Malaysian waterways and pesticides in fruits and vegetables by using techniques such as GC, GC-MS, HPLC and LC-MS. He is currently supervising five PhD and one MSc student for their theses. In addition to this, he has supervised a post-doctoral researcher from Turkey on environmental analytical chemistry sponsored by the Malaysia/Turkey Cultural Exchange Programme. His current research interests focus on the environmental pollution problems in Malaysian waterways as a result of industrialisation and increasing agricultural production in this country. He is also currently doing studies on developing microextraction techniques for analysis of pesticide residues in food matrices such fruits and vegetables. He has presented and published many papers on the monitoring of priority environmental organic pollutants at various international and local symposiums and conferences as a result of his research findings. He has also presented papers on the applications and theory of gas chromatography and high performance liquid chromatography at regional workshops organized by the Malaysian Institute of Chemistry. Currently he is also investigating the use of high performance analytical instruments such as GC-MS and LC-MS for the determination of trace organics – pesticide residues and pollutants - in food. He was also the team leader for the Consultancy project for Petronas Advanced Gas Chromatography Course conducted in September 2005. He has also served as the external examiner for PhD and Masters’ theses from UKM, UPM , UTM, UiTM and USM.
Research Interest
Trace Chemical Analysis (Chromatography, GC-MS, LC-MS, Polarography, Method Development) Sample Preparation for Chromatographic Analysis via Microextraction Techniques