Award Presentations Highlight Pittcon 2005

An important function of Pittcon, the Pittsburgh Conference & Exposition on Analytical Chemistry & Applied Spectroscopy, is to recognize and honor scientists who have made outstanding contributions. Several awards were presented during the conference.

John F. Rabolt, Karl W. & Renate Boer Professor of Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Delaware, Newark, received the Pittsburgh Spectroscopy Award from the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh (SSP) for his research in polymer deformation and orientation, electrospinning, organic thin films, infrared/Raman spectroscopy, and biomolecular materials.

Rabolt is also an associated faculty member at Delaware Biotechnology Institute. Before joining the University of Delaware in 1996 as chair of the department of materials science and engineering, Rabolt was a research staff member at IBM Almaden Research Center.

James W. Jorgenson, William Rand Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, received the Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry Award from the Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh for his pioneering work on capillary electrophoresis and other separations sciences. His current research interests also include ultra-high-pressure liquid chromatography, microcolumn liquid chromatography, multidimensional separations, microscale separations coupled to mass spectrometry, ultramicro- and single-cell analyses, and the design of detectors for chromatography and electrophoresis.

James Winefordner, V. T. & Louise Jackson Professor of Chemistry at the University of Florida, received the Maurice F. Hasler Award, sponsored by Thermo Electron and administered by SSP. The award is given out every two years to recognize notable achievements in spectroscopy that have resulted in significant applications of broad utility.

Winefordner is well-known for the development of atomic fluorescence spectroscopy as an analytical tool, for his contributions to low-temperature and room-temperature phosphorimetry, and for his early application of tunable laser excitation for atomic and molecular fluorescence spectrometry. Many measurement principles that are standard in modern instrumentation have been demonstrated for the first time in his laboratory, which has also pioneered the analytical use of dozens of spectroscopy tools. His applications of signal-to-noise calculations and measurements in analytical spectrometry proved to be the correct means of optimization of experimental systems and the basis of many analytical figures of merit.

Andr M. Striegel, an assistant professor in the chemistry and biochemistry department at Florida State University, received the Analytical Chemistry Award for Young Investigators in Separation Science, sponsored by Agilent Technologies and administered by the ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry, for his work on size-exclusion chromatography.

Prior to joining Florida State, he spent several years as a research scientist with Solutia, first in the physical and analytical sciences center and then in their films R&D department. He holds bachelor's and Ph.D. degrees in chemistry from the University of New Orleans. His doctoral work was on electrospray ionization mass spectrometry and size-exclusion chromatography of oligo- and polysaccharides. He did postdoctoral research on the structure-property relations of plant polymers and dendrimers.

Paul W. Bohn, a research professor of microelectronics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, received the Bomem-Michelson Award from the Coblentz Society. The award, dedicated to the memory of A. E. Michelson and sponsored by ABB, is presented annually to honor scientists who have advanced the techniques of vibrational, molecular, Raman, or electronic spectroscopy.

Bohn's research interests have been in the understanding and control of molecular transport on the nanometer scale, developing new optical spectroscopic measurement strategies for surface and interfacial structure-function studies, and molecular approaches to nanotechnology.

Since arriving at the University of Illinois in 1983, Bohn has been a Beckman Fellow in the Center for Advanced Study and a university scholar. In 1990, he received the Coblentz Award, given out each year for outstanding contributions to the field of molecular spectroscopy by investigators under the age of 36.

He has authored or coauthored more than 140 publications in fields centered on the understanding and control of molecular transport on the nanometer length scale, including spatially anisotropic surfaces, optical spectroscopic measurement strategies for surface and interfacial structure-function studies, molecular nanoelectronics, and the characterization of optoelectronic materials.

Alan M. Bond, R. L. Martin Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Monash University, in Clayton, Australia, received the Charles N. Reilley Award in Electroanalytical Chemistry, sponsored by the Society for Electroanalytical Chemistry. Bond's research over more than 35 years has addressed the theory, instrumentation, and application of modern electrochemical methods to a variety of inorganic, biochemical, and analytical problems.

Bond has published nearly 600 papers and two books. He has received numerous prestigious honors.

David E. Cliffel, an assistant professor in the chemistry department of Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, received the Young Investigator Award, presented annually by the Society for Electroanalytical Chemistry.

Cliffel joined the chemistry department at Vanderbilt as an assistant professor in 2000. He received bachelor's degrees in chemistry and electrical engineering from the University of Dayton, Ohio, in 1992. In 1998, he received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Texas, Austin, under the direction of Allen J. Bard, focusing on scanning electrochemical microscopy and fullerenes. He then joined the research group of Royce W. Murray at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, as a postdoctoral associate working on the electrochemistry of monolayer-protected clusters.

At Vanderbilt, Cliffel's research group concentrates on the electrochemical analysis of nanoparticles and of biological cells. The group has explored the catalytic properties and electron-transfer kinetics of monolayer-protected clusters using the scanning electrochemical microscope and has developed a multianalyte microphysiometer for metabolic measurements and toxicology.

Daniel W. Armstrong, Caldwell Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Iowa State University, received the Dal Nogare Award, which is given by the Chromatography Forum of Delaware Valley, for his outstanding work in the field of chromatography.

Armstrong's research interests include use of ordered media in chemistry and analysis; molecular recognition and enantioselective separations; high-efficiency separations of colloids, especially microbes; room-temperature ionic liquids; and pharmaceutical and environmental science.

Boris Mizaikoff of the School of Chemistry & Biochemistry at Georgia Institute of Technology received the Pittsburgh Conference Achievement Award, sponsored and administered by the Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh.

Mizaikoff received his Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Vienna University of Technology, in Austria, in 1996. He has been at Georgia Tech since 2000, where he heads the applied sensors laboratory.

Mizaikoff's research interests focus on optical sensors, biosensors, and biomimetic sensors operating in the mid-infrared spectral range, novel IR light sources, system miniaturization and integration based on micro- and nanofabrication, focused-ion-beam techniques, multifunctional scanning nanoprobes, scanning-probe-tip integrated nano(bio)sensors, development of chemical recognition layers and sensing membranes, chemometric data evaluation, and advanced vibrational spectroscopic techniques.

Robert W. Allington of Instrumentation Specialties Co. (ISCO), a noted entrepreneur and prolific innovator, received the Pittcon Heritage Award, sponsored by Pittcon and the Chemical Heritage Foundation. The award recognizes outstanding individuals whose entrepreneurial careers have shaped the instrumentation community, inspired achievement, promoted public understanding of the modern instrumentation sciences, and highlighted the role of analytical chemistry in world economies.

Allington started ISCO in his garage and built it into a more than $60 million global enterprise. The first major innovation at ISCO came when Allington received an order to manufacture a fraction collector for liquid chromatography, which served a market niche for biochemical laboratory instruments. This work was followed by development of ultraviolet absorbance (as opposed to transmittance) detectors for separation by either liquid chromatography, centrifuged density gradients, or electrophoresis.

Allington also developed the first portable spectroradiometer as well as the first electronically programmable multipump gradient former for liquid chromatography. In later years, ISCO also became a leading supplier in the wastewater monitoring market.

Edward S. Yeung, Robert Allen Wright Professor and Distinguished Professor in Liberal Arts & Sciences at Iowa State University, received the Ralph N. Adams Award, sponsored by Pittcon and friends of Ralph Adams. The award was established to recognize an outstanding scientist who has advanced the field of bioanalytical chemistry through research, innovation, or education.

Yeung's research interests span both spectroscopy and chromatography. He has published in areas such as nonlinear spectroscopy, laser-based detectors for liquid chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, trace-gas monitoring, single-cell and single-molecule analysis, DNA sequencing, and data treatment procedures in chemical measurements. He is an associate editor of Analytical Chemistry.

Ana Garrido-Varo, a senior lecturer in animal nutrition at the University of Cordoba, in Spain, received the Tomas B. Hirschfeld Award, presented by the International Committee for Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS).

Garrido-Varo supervised the creation of a centralized-service NIRS Unit at the University of Cordoba (UCO). She has produced NIRS teaching materials in Spanish and has designed different tutorial NIRS courses. To date, more than 800 agriculture and forestry engineering students have taken her introductory NIRS courses, and more than 250 UCO postgraduates, researchers, teachers, and professionals have attended the national and international NIRS courses she has taught and coordinated since 1990.

The main themes of Garrido-Varo's scientific work include the development of robust calibrations that may be implemented in the Spanish agro-food industry.

Fran Adar, worldwide Raman applications manager at Horiba Jobin Yvon, received the Williams-Wright Award from the Coblentz Society for her pivotal work in developing the potential of the Raman microprobe. Some of the applications of this instrument include the study of spin orientation in polymers and stress in silicon microcircuits.

Adar has traveled extensively to deliver seminars at universities, industries, and government laboratories illustrating the power of Raman in fields as varied as semiconductors, polymers, ceramics and glasses, and pigments and oxides, as well as in applications as diverse as corrosion science and archaeology, forensic science, bioclinical studies, and pharmaceuticals.

Adar has developed techniques that make instrumentation more robust in users' hands. These techniques include standard Raman samples, which standardize microprobe tests using silicon chips; known skin depth at a given wavelength, which makes signals reproducible from day to day and instrument to instrument; fluorescing standards for wavelength corrections; the use of fluorescing glass for each excitation wavelength for wavelength-dependent influences on spectra; and the use of a fluorescing glass for each excitation wavelength.