This book is an attempt to fill a gap that has existed since the dawn of XAFS: to provide a broad and sufficiently deep introduction for graduate students and other researchers, to enable them to quickly learn the disparate things that are needed to do XAFS research in a reliable way. The broad applicability of the XAFS technique draws researchers with a variety of backgrounds who are not specialists in the technique. There needs to be an accessible resource by which they can learn the essentials in a reasonably efficient and comprehensive way.

I have been doing XAFS research for more than 30 years, starting out in the laboratory of Edward Stern at the University of Washington. My work has involved applications and methods development; experiment, theory, computation; synchrotron instrumentation, and construction and operation of synchrotron facilities. I have learned a great deal from Ed Stern, John Rehr, Dale Sayers, Steve Heald, Farrel Lytle, Bruce A. Bunker, Gerd Rosenbaum, and many other colleagues and students too numerous to list, to whom I express my gratitude. I also would like to express my gratitude to my family for their patience and support while I have been occupied nights, weekends, and holidays in writing this book; my brother, Bruce, for originally getting me involved in XAFS; and to my parents, now both deceased, for their unwavering support of the study, appreciation, and preservation of nature.

This book covers basic material, occasionally dipping a toe into deeper waters.