Graham Layne holds undergraduate and advanced degrees in Geology from the University of Toronto (B.Sc. 1981, Ph.D. 1988). His doctoral research was in the field of Mineral Deposits Geochemistry, studying the role of high temperature fluids in the deposition of metallic ores. He came to Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988 as an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow, where he began his involvement with Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) as a tool for research in the fields of mineral deposits and volcanology. He subsequently moved to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as a Postdoctoral Investigator, when the MIT facility relocated there in 1991.

From 1992 to 1995 he was the principal in an NSF National Facility for SIMS located in Albuquerque, New Mexico – a joint venture of the University of New Mexico and Sandia National Laboratories. In December 1995, he returned to WHOI to undertake the development of a larger multi-user facility based around an advanced Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer – the IMS 1270. This instrument is now operated at WHOI as part of the Northeast National Ion Microprobe Facility (NENIMF), an NSF-sponsored National Facility for SIMS microanalysis in the Earth Sciences.

Dr. Layne is an internationally recognized authority in the use of SIMS for the quantitative elemental and isotopic analysis of natural materials. His research interests include lunar and planetary materials, geochemistry of magmatic and volcanic volatiles, isotope geochemistry of hydrothermal ore deposits, marine biomineralization, and the stable isotope signatures of early life. He remains actively involved in the development and optimization of advanced instrumentation for microanalytical mass spectrometry.

Dr. Layne joined Memorial University as an Associate Professor (Analytical Geochemistry) in March 2006. He is a faculty member of the Earth Sciences Department and the principal scientist for the the new SIMS laboratory to be developed within the MicroAnalysis Facility at the INCO Innovation Centre.