Peter van der Burgt is Associate Professor in the Department of Experimental Physics at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. He obtained MSc and PhD degrees in physics at the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands, where he performed research on electron collisions with helium atoms. He has held postdoctoral positions at North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC, USA) and the University of Windsor (Windsor, Ontario, Canada), and has been a guest researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA). Since 1994 he has been lecturing Experimental Physics in Maynooth. His general area of research and experience is electron and photon collisions with atoms, molecules, and clusters. His current research is focussing on electron-impact induced fragmentation of molecules in the gas phase (nucleobases and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) using time-of-flight mass spectrometry. He is a participant and member of the management committee of COST Action “CA18212 – Molecular Dynamics in the GAS phase”.
Peter van der Burgt has been secretary and chairperson of the Institute of Physics in Ireland, and secretary and chairperson of the Atomic and Molecular Interactions Group of the Institute of Physics. He is currently a co-opted member of Council of the Institute of Physics. He is chairperson of Christians in Science Ireland, and is a member of Christians in Science and the American Scientific Affiliation.
Recent scientific publications
P.J.M. van der Burgt, M.A. Brown, J. Bockova, A. Rebelo, M. Ryszka, J.-C. Poully, and S. Eden, “Fragmentation processes of ionized 5-fluorouracil in the gas phase and within clusters”, Eur. J. Phys. D 73 (2019) 184-1-13.
P.J.M. van der Burgt, M. Dunne, and M.L. Gradziel: “Comparison of the fragmentations of phenanthrene and anthracene by low-energy electron impact”, J. Phys. Conf. Ser. 1289 (2019) 012008-1-5.
P.J.M. van der Burgt, M. Dunne and M.L. Gradziel, “Hydrogen rearrangements in the fragmentation of anthracene by low-energy electron impact”, Eur. J. Phys. D 72 (2018) 31-1-11.
V.A. Alekseev, P.J.M. van der Burgt, and D.W. Setser, “Stimulated directional emission induced by two-photon excitation of the Xe 6p′ and Xe 7p states”, J. Chem. Phys. 146 (2017) 094304-1-7.
P.J.M. van der Burgt, S. Finnegan, and S. Eden, “Electron impact fragmentation of adenine: partial ionization cross sections for positive fragments”, Eur. J. Phys. D 69 (2015) 173-1-8.
P.J.M. van der Burgt, F. Mahon, G. Barrett, and M.L. Gradziel, “Electron impact fragmentation of thymine: partial ionization cross sections for positive fragments”, Eur. J. Phys. D 68 (2014) 151-1-9.
P.J.M. van der Burgt, “Electron impact fragmentation of cytosine: partial ionization cross sections for positive fragments”, Eur. J. Phys. D 68 (2014) 135-1-7.
Barca, M. Ryszka, J.-C. Poully, E. Jabbour Al Maalouf, Z. el Otell, J. Tabet, R. Parajuli, P.J.M. van der Burgt, P. Limão-Vieira, P. Cahillane, M. Dampc, N.J. Mason, and S. Eden, “Multi-photon and electron impact ionisation studies of reactivity in adenine–water clusters”, Int. J. Mass Spectrom. 365–366 (2014) 194-199.
Publications in science and religion
P.J.M. van der Burgt: “Can Science Detect Design in Nature?”, chapter in the 2008 Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society.