Charles Wilkins Awarded ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry Award

Charles Wilkins, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, Arkansas), has been awarded the 2013 American Chemical Society Division of Analytical Chemistry Award in Chemical Instrumentation, sponsored by the Dow Chemical Company (North Olmsted, Ohio). The award recognizes Wilkins for his contributions to a broad range of analytical instrumentation techniques that have been documented in more than 300 publications in Analytical Chemistry, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Journal of Physical Chemistry, and many other books and journals. He has also authored or co-edited nine books that cover a variety of analytical instrumentation methods.

Wilkins is distinguished by his leading contributions in a wide range of analytical instrumentation, including advances in Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, FT-nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry, ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry, and computerized laboratory data acquisition and analysis. He has been recognized for his contributions to the development of hyphenated instrument approaches to couple distinct types of instrumentation for analytical purposes. Wilkins was the first to combine GC-infrared and mass spectrometry into a single analysis system and was a leader in the combination of HPLC analysis and nuclear magnetic resonance in ways that opened the current use of HPLC-NMR for metabolomics studies. His work, in collaboration with chemist Michael Gross also pioneered the use of ICR-mass spectrometry for analytical applications.

Wilkins has served as chair of the Analytical Chemistry Division and chair of the computers in chemistry division of the American Chemical Society. He also was chair of the department of chemistry at the University of California, Riverside, for seven years. He served on the advisory board of the National Center for Toxicological Research of the Food and Drug Administration and has served on many other advisory boards and panels.

A podcast interview with Wilkins will be featured in the August 13th issue of Spectroscopy’s Wavelength e-newsletter and available online at www.spectroscopyonline.com as part of the 2013 FACSS-SciX Awards Podcast series.