A Guiding Principle for Analytical Scientists

“We cannot improve something we cannot measure.”

This is Ayush Agarwal’s guiding principle that he adheres to in his research, which has carried over through his engineering education and now as an analytical chemist. Agarwal is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Federal Institute of Materials Research and Testing in Berlin, and he recently sat down with Spectroscopy as part of our “Pathways in Spectroscopy” series to talk about his transition from chemical engineering to analytical chemistry, outlining how scientists can make career transitions to analytical chemistry or spectroscopy.^1,2

In this “Pathways in Spectroscopy” clip, Agarwal discusses his abovementioned guiding principle and why he feels it is important.

Spectroscopy: One of your guiding principles is: “We cannot improve something we cannot measure.” Can you elaborate on this principle for our audience?

Ayush Agarwal: To improve something, we have to be able to measure it, and without accurate and precise measurements, whatever we do is practically meaningless. So how I explain it to my parents or someone who has absolutely no background in science is with the following example: many of us must have been to doctors at least one point in our lives. And what does the doctor do? The first thing when you visit him or her, the doctor orders tests. These tests cannot be good or useful if the test results are not accurate and precise. So now that I am the first person in my family to have this doctor title, I say that I'm the doctor for our environment. We know that the global warming is there and the temperatures are rising, so we can have the analogy that our planet is have running high fever, and then I, as a doctor, am working on designing tests that can help us improve the health of our planet. So, yes, we cannot improve something we cannot measure.

References

1. Wetzel, W. Pathways in Spectroscopy Preview: Transitioning from Chemical Engineering to Analytical Chemistry. Spectroscopy. Available at: https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/pathways-in-spectroscopy-preview-transitioning-from-chemical-engineering-to-analytical-chemistry (accessed 2026-04-16).
2. LinkedIn, Ayush Agarwal. LinkedIn. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayush09/ (accessed 2026-04-16).