Laura Bush

A famous and admired professor of analytical chemistry, Gary M. Hieftje, is officially retiring. He has been a prominent faculty member at Indiana University for 50 years, and a beloved mentor, colleague, and friend to many. In this special feature, we take a look at his many contributions, and his broad impact on the field.

EDXRF offers potential advantages over ICP-OES for elemental analysis in agriculture. Karen Daly and Anna Fenelon of the Agriculture and Food Development Authority of Ireland spoke to us about their work investigating agricultural applications of this technique.

The accumulation of heavy and toxic elements in gallstones and kidney stones can be studied using WDXRF spectroscopy. Here, Vivek K. Singh of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University in India talks about his work using this technique to understand the formation and content of these stones in the body.

Javier Laserna has developed a technique for analyzing the composition of individual nanoparticles that is capable of detecting nanoparticles as the attogram level, by combining LIBS with optical trapping.

Significant progress is being made to harness the power of spectroscopy technique for medical research. An ongoing challenge, and area of development, in this effort, is to “see” more and more detail about biological activity, even within individual cells. Ji-Xin Cheng, a professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University, is advancing such work, by developing techniques like midinfrared photothermal (MIP) imaging and Raman spectromicroscopy. Cheng is the 2019 winner of the Ellis R. Lippincott Award, which is awarded annually by the Optical Society, the Coblentz Society, and the Society for Applied Spectroscopy, to an individual who has made significant contributions to the field of vibrational spectroscopy. Here, Cheng speaks to us about those techniques.

Mohamad Sabsabi of the National Research Council of Canada explains the fundamentals of LIBS, its recent evolution, and its benefits and limitations, and offers advice for new users.

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) has seen significant expanded adoption in recent years, particularly in industrial applications where it can provide important advantages over other techniques. Mohamad Sabsabi, of the National Research Council of Canada, has been leading programs to research and implement the use of LIBS in mining and energy applications.

Jorge Pisonero of the University of Oviedo studies the performance of the laser ablation process in laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, examining aspects such as the morphology of the craters created during sampling and the role of laser fluence. He also studies the effect of these factors in specific applications of LA-ICP-MS. He recently spoke to us about this work.

A new method enables quantification of pyrrolizidine alkaloids in a range of food matrices.

Dominic Hare, a senior research fellow and the head of the Atomic Pathology Laboratory at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Victoria, Australia, has won the 2019 Emerging Leader in Atomic Spectroscopy Award, which is presented by Spectroscopy magazine.

Nearly six months after Hurricane Maria battered Puerto Rico, residents there are still coping with the aftermath. Among those affected are university professors and students, particularly in the sciences, because the long period without electricity and mold growth severely damaged and in some cases destroyed sensitive equipment and laboratories. To gain a fuller picture of the situation, we talked to Fabiola Pagán Meléndez, an undergraduate chemistry student from the University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras Campus, about her experience and how the storm has affected her studies and future plans. Pagán is also a journalist for the student-run media outlet Pulso Estudiantil, and right after the hurricane, she recorded a video that was distributed by NBC News. She was also quoted in a story in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

In biology, the study of intracellular structures is important and requires analytical techniques with submicrometer resolution. Atomic force microscopy-infrared (AFM-IR) spectroscopy is one technique that has the required lateral spatial resolution to observe such structures. David Perez-Guaita, PhD, at the Centre for Biospectroscopy at Monash University in Australia, is pioneering work applying AFM-IR to the study of red blood cells infected with the malaria parasite.

A lively exchange of perspectives emerged recently on the LinkedIn group for Spectroscopy, as well as on the group for our sister magazine, LCGC. The conversation, sparked by a New York Times article, was about what it takes to become a scientist and why so many students, particularly in the United States, become discouraged along the way.

A Q&A with Jose Almirall, PhD, professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the director of the International Forensic Research Institute at Florida International University.

New Editorial Director, Laura Bush, introduces herself to the Spectroscopy community.