Nick Birse

Nick Birse is a Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at Queen's University Belfast, affiliated with the Institute for Global Food Security. He specializes in developing mass spectrometry workflows for food and biological research, collaborating closely with instrument vendors to test and deploy new technologies. His research focuses on LC-MS, GC-MS, ICP-MS, and ambient mass spectrometry systems, alongside data processing innovations.

Education: PhD in Biological Sciences (2021) from Queen's University Belfast, supervised by Prof. Chris Elliott and Dr. Olivier Chevallier. His thesis explored ambient mass spectrometry for food safety applications.

Research interests include analytical method development, food authenticity, metabolomics, and instrumentation. Key projects include MYCOBEANS (climate-resilient mycotoxin research) and RASCAL (agrifood supply chain analytics). He has authored 36+ publications, with recent work emphasizing microplastic detection, plant metabolomics, and machine learning applications.

Active in academic engagement: editorial roles for npj Science of Food, invited talks on seafood authenticity and food testing technologies, and participation in international food analysis symposiums.