Dr. Menghua Liu is the Director of the Advanced Instrumentation Laboratory. He also teaches and does research as an Associate Professor of Analytical chemistry in the Department of Geosciences, College of Natural Science & Mathematics. His primary fields are on mineralogy, geochemistry, Igneous petrology and related mineral ore deposits, and analytical methods and applications in geosciences and material sciences. His research interest has been on critical minerals, high temperature partitioning experiment of siderophile elements and highly siderophile elements (PGE and Au) and application to magmatic sulfide-PGE deposits.

Dr. Ken Severin is the Director Emeritus of the AIL. He started out as a micropaleontologist (both large and small foraminifera) and moved into the analysis and interpretation of elemental signatures in otoliths (fish ear bones). He has collaborated on projects from ice crystals to moose teeth to volcanic rocks, and is currently examining the atomic structure of otoliths with an eye toward getting at the causality behind the elemental patterns they contain. Ken specializes in X-ray Spectroscopy and Electron Microscopy techniques.