Dr. Thomas Witzke, Diplom-Mineralogist, Dr. rer. nat.

Thomas Witzke studied mineralogy at the Technical University Mining Academy Freiberg, Germany. He received the Dr. rer. nat. at the Martin-Luther University Halle, Germany, in 1995 under Professor Herbert Pöllmann for the work on characterisation, structure modelling and Rietveld refinements of new phases with hydroxide layer structures. Thomas worked later also on the Universities of Aachen and Rostock in Germany. In 2011 he joined PANalytical (now Malvern Panalytical) in Almelo, The Netherlands. He has a particular interest and expertise in Rietveld quantifications of different materials, and a special scientific interest is the characterization of new minerals.

Thomas believes in helping customers in the quantification of different and complex materials, and he likes to give training on the Rietveld method.

Dr.Thomas Witzke has authored a number of peer-reviewed publications in international journals like European Journal of Mineralogy, American Mineralogist, Canadian Mineralogist, Journal of Geosciences and others. He is the main author of a book on minerals discovered in Saxony, Germany.

Thomas Witzke is the representative member for Germany in the Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification of the International Mineralogical Association. He has spoken on or contributed to several conferences, for example of the International Mineralogical Association in Johannesburg, Melbourne and Lyon, of the German Mineralogical Association at several meetings, the International Congress for Applied Mineralogy, the Denver X-ray Conference, the International Conference on the Chemistry of Construction Materials, several Building Materials Analysis Workshops and others. He is the main or co-author of the description of more than 20 new minerals. The mineral witzkeite, a rare nitrate-sulphate from Chile, was named in honour of Thomas Witzke.