Chemical Heritage Foundation - Instrumentation Innovation: A Personal History of Instruments and Innovation

Session 280, Room 201, 8:00 a.m.

This Monday morning session will be presided over by Rosie Cook of the Chemical Heritage Foundation, who also arranged the session.

The session will open with introductory remarks from Cook. The first presentation in the session, “Engineering Realities: Ometric, the University of South Carolina and the Birth of a New Measurement Technology,” will be given by Davis W. Baird of Clark University. Baird will discuss how a company formed to capitalize on the university’s intellectual property “lives in an engineer’s reality, while simultaneously working to engineer realities.”

Next, David C. Brock of the Chemical Heritage Foundation will present a talk titled “Instruments, Automation, Bits, and Palm Trees: Instrumentation Firms and the Early Computer Industry.” His presentation will describe a little-known but important intersection of the history of analytical instrumentation and electronic computing.

The next and final presentation in the symposium, to be given by Rosie Cook, is titled “More than Black Boxes — Using Instruments to Tell the Personal Side of Chemistry.” Her talk will look at some extraordinary scientists whose work in areas such as mass spectrometry, X-ray crystallography, and environmental monitoring has led to innovations and discoveries.

Attendees will be invited to the Pittcon Hall of Fame following the session for further discussion about the pioneers of instrumentation.