Institute Faculty
Bonnie A.B. Blackwell, Ph.D.
Director, RFK Science Research Institute
Research Scientist, Dept. of Chemistry, Williams College
In 1987, Dr. Bonnie A.B. Blackwell received her Ph.D. in geochemistry and paleontology from the University of Alberta in 1987, for her work on amino acid racemization analyses of teeth and bones from archaeological sites in France. In 1989, Dr. Blackwell moved to McMaster University, to do ESR dating with Dr. Henry Schwarcz. In 1993, she began to teach high-school students to do aspects of ESR dating in her labs at the University of Windsor and later at Queens College, City Univesity of New York. In 1998, she joined Williams College as a research scientist, and formalized the RFKSRI to teach NYC highschool and undergraduate students about geological science. Dr. Black-well has dated fossils from > 90 archaeological, paleontological, and geological sites around the world and has published > 80 articles in government reports, peer reviewed journals and monographs.
Joel I.B. Blickstein, Ph.D.
Co-Director, RFK Science Research Institute
Dr. Joel I.B. Blickstein received his Ph.D. in geochemistry from the CUNY Graduate Center in 1994, where he first teamed up with Dr. Blackwell to encourage highschool students to do university-level science for local science contests. A chemistry and science teacher with the New York City Department of Education for more than 25 years, Dr. Blickstein co-founded the RFK Science Research Institute (RFKSRI) in 1998 and continues to direct the RFKSRI program.
Anne R. Skinner, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer, Emerita,
Dept. of Chemistry, Williams College
Adjunct Staff
Andrés Montoya-Castillo, Ph.D.
Consulting Research Scientist
Professor of Chemistry, Univ. of Colorado
at Boulder
Dr. Andrés Montoya Castillo joined RFK Science Research Institute (RFKSRI) in 2003 as a Grade 10 student. After dating teeth from the Attirampakkam archaeological site, he was able to demonstrate that teeth can show multiple discrete U uptake events in response to paleoenvironmental change. Within his first few months, Andrés proved to be our best tooth driller in the lab. By the time he graduated, Andrés had authored five confer-ence publications and two scientific papers. As an undergraduate, Andrés went on to join the RFKSRI staff as a trainer. In 2016, Dr. Montoya received his Ph.D. in theoretical chemical physics from Columbia University and completed post-doctoral training at Stanford University. He is a professor of chemistry at UC Boulder and a consulting scientist for RFKSRI.
Jonathan A. Florentin
Senior Laboratory Technician
Senior Lab Supervisor
Jonathan (Jon) Florentin joined RFKSRI in his sophomore year of high school. Beginning his research career with Electron Spin Resonance Dating, Jon dated mollusc samples from marine terraces in Hatay, Turkey. In 2012, Jon won 2nd in category at the NYC Science & Engineering Fair (NYCSEF). By the time Jon graduated from high school, he had won 1st at NYCSEF, presented his work at the Geological Society of America (GSA) annual conference, and became an author with multiple scientific publications. Jon is currently finishing his B.A. in Environmental Studies at CUNY Hunter College. Jon has a passion for environmental research and hopes to work in environmental conservation, paleoclimat-ology, and Geographic Information Systems.
Impreet Singh, M.A.
Senior Laboratory Technician
ESR Project Supervisor
Impreet Singh joined the RFKSRI as a Grade 9 student, when she was named a Regional Finalist in the Siemens Contest. Impreet earned her bachelors and masters degrees in biology from SUNY Binghamton University. Impreet is a coauthor of several abstracts and conference presentations at the Geological Society of America, the Paleoanthropology Society, and Society for American Society for Archaeology annual meetings. Her favourite saying heard around the lab is “Give me work. I need more work!” Impreet is currently pursuing a career as a physician.
Riyadh Ally
COVID-19 Compliance Officer
Webmaster and Technical Support
Coming soon...
External Profile 🔗
Christian D. Murphy, B.A.
Irradiation Technician
In 2016, Christian Murphy joined the RFK Science Research Institute (RFKSRI) as an undergraduate intern, where he studied electron spin resonance dating corals and molluscs found in the dunes, beaches, and coral reefs on San Salvador, The Bahamas. In 2017, Christian graduated with honors from Hunter College, City University of New York, with a B.A. in Environmental Studies. Christian serves as an irradiation technician with RFKSRI, and continues to date fossils from coral reefs
from The Bahamas and Greece. Chris-tian plans to research in environmental analysis and conservation for his post-grad-uate work.
Not Available
Supervisor
Technician
Coming soon...
External Profile 🔗
Clara Huang
Laboratory Manager/Supervisor
Webmaster
Clara Huang joined the RFKSRI as a Grade 9 student. At NYCSEF 2017, she and her other group members won 2nd place for their project on tracing Neanderthal activity in the Balkans. Since then, Clara has presented three times at the Geological Society of America and has co-authorship in 2 pending publications. Starting from 2019, Clara works as a lab manager at RFK guiding and teaching new members ESR techniques and supervising lab proceedings.