Dr. Bol'shakov is a laser spectroscopist and plasma physicist with a 25-year experience in these fields. He conducted instrumentation and methodology development for the remote laser-induced breakdown and Raman spectroscopic identification of a multitude of diverse material. He has management experience in product development of a transportable advanced stand-off LIBS spectrometer which used the improved chemometrics algorithms he helped to develop for the analysis of spectroscopic data. Dr. Bol'shakov has made improvements in the measurements of atmospheric aerosols using optical cavity ring-down instrumentation and fulfilled a project on optical diagnostics (emission- and diode laser-based absorption) of inductively coupled plasma (ICP) aimed on applications in nano- and micro-electronics fabrication and also on diode-laser sensors for planetary exploration. His projects included work on optical diagnostics of enclosed ICP designed for trace analysis of reactive specialty gases, where he elucidated novel effects in a halogen-gas ICP and significantly improved its detection capability. He specifically designed and tested an interface between analytical ICP-mass spectrometer and gas chromatography (GC-ICP-MS) and has managed projects on development of laser-induced gas breakdown spectroscopic (LIBS) and gas-chromatographic analyzers for high-purity gases used in the semiconductor industry. His software and database experience includes the development and administration of the concept, acquisition and classification of information for a major database on laser-based techniques and technologies. Dr. Bol'shakov has served as a manuscript/proposal reviewer and authored approximately 120 publications and presentations, including patents on analytical methods.