Maggi Loubser

Maggi Loubser’s career in X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy started as a laboratory technician at the Atomic Energy Corporation of South Africa in 1988.  In 1994 she joined the Geology department of the University of Pretoria (UP) where for the next fourteen years the X-ray laboratory was build up to a state of the art facility. She joined PPC Cement in November, 2008, where her duties involved the training, mentoring and capacity building of the chemists in the group, ensuring world-class analytical laboratory practices and implement best practices across the group. She was involved in the African expansion; assisting in the planning, building and commissioning of laboratories all over Africa. Since October 2014 she headed the R&D team. In April 2016 GeoMag GeoChem was created to provide her with the opportunity to do what she likes best, teaching, technical support in various industries. In January 2019 University of Pretoria convinced her to return to academia on a two year contract to head up a new Masters programme in Tangible Heritage Conservation.

Currently her life is a potpourri of different experiences: She supports the mining and manufacturing industry in training, calibration of XRF spectrometers, method development, and gap identification. She does a lot of work on handheld spectrometers and aims to introduce portable XRF as benchmark technique for conservation in Africa. This gives her the opportunity to play with anything from shipwreck treasures to paintings and heritage sculptures. Her latest challenge as programme manager for the Tangible Heritage Master’s programme has her teaching science to students with a humanities background to equip them to better understand the materials they work with in conservation and research of cultural heritage objects.