Academic Credentials
  • Ph.D., Chemistry, University of York, UK, 2003
  • M.Chem., Chemistry, University of York, UK, 1999

Dr. Driffield has 25 years' experience in the field of analytical chemistry, providing advice and guidance on the analytical techniques used to investigate problems across a number of commodities and Industries including food, beverages, food packaging and food contact materials such as plastics, coatings and printing inks, environmental samples and fuels.

Dr Driffield works with clients in the UK, EU, US and Asia to solve scientific, technical and regulatory challenges, specializing in the area of food contact materials, and also working with novel foods, food additives and colour additives. One area of expertise that Dr Driffield particularly enjoys working on is non-intentionally added substances (NIAS) in food contact materials and he uses his many years laboratory experience in this area to assist clients with all aspects of NIAS determination, including design and interpretation of analytical NIAS testing, identification and quantification of NIAS from analytical data and tracing the origin of these substances. Dr. Driffield has extensively published and is often an invited speaker at international conferences and workshops.

Dr. Driffield has experience in undertaking witnessed analysis of samples involved in disputes and litigation, for example contaminated ship cargoes and bunker fuel samples, in particular exploratory testing for fuel characterization and contaminant identification using mass spectrometric techniques, as well as overseeing testing according to ISO 8217 and other appropriate standards.

Before joining Exponent, Dr Driffield worked for over 16 years at a UK Government laboratory, Fera Science Ltd (previously The Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera) and the Central Science Laboratory (CSL)) where he gained widespread experience in analytical methodologies used in the determination of chemical contaminants in foods and food contact materials. It was at Fera as a Research Fellow, where he built-up his extensive knowledge of non-targeted analysis techniques used for the determination of NIAS. As well as a strong technical knowledge in applying analytical techniques, he has considerable experience in the interpretation of the complex data sets produced, for Industrial and Government clients, as well as global regulatory bodies.

In his previous role as Team Manager and Science Lead - Packaging and MS Solutions at Fera, Dr. Driffield led a team working on all aspects of food contact materials testing including product development, extraction and migration studies, and analysis using a wide range of state-of-the-art analytical technologies, often providing analytical data and interpretation of the results for regulatory submissions. He organized and presented on training courses and attended meetings held by the European Reference Laboratory for Food Contact Materials, representing the UK National Reference Laboratory in this area.