Four finalists for the FACSS Innovation Award presented on the afternoon of October 8, 2026, at SciX 2026. Their work spanned drone-mounted laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), a touch-and-sound virtual reality system for blind scientists, polarized infrared (IR) imaging of shape memory polymers, and an ultrasound-activated plasmonic nanoplatform aimed at Parkinson’s disease.
The FACSS Innovation Award session (AWD-Thu3) took place on Thursday, October 8, 2026, from 3:50 to 5:10 PM PDT in Cascade 1. Alessandro De Giacomo described a calibration-free LIBS sensor flown on an eight-propeller drone to analyze volcanic ash and ground samples. John H. Kalivas presented a haptic-first virtual reality environment that allowed blind students to perform one-class classification of mid-infrared spectra. Dabin Kim reported polarization-dependent IR microscopy that followed molecular alignment through shape memory cycles. Salah Oudjertli outlined a graphene–gallium-doped zinc oxide nanotransducer that combined plasmon-enhanced spectroscopy with piezoelectric actuation to disassemble α-synuclein fibrils. This report summarizes each talk.
Where does spectroscopy belong? For decades, the answer was a bench, a trained operator, and a monitor. The four finalists who presented in the FACSS Innovation Award session on Thursday afternoon at SciX 2026 each questioned part of that picture.
One team took the spectrometer into the sky. Another removed the monitor and replaced it with gloves and sound. A third used polarized light to ask what a “memory” looks like inside a polymer. The fourth placed spectroscopy inside a nanoscale device intended to work within the brain. The session ran in Cascade 1 from 3:50 to 5:10 PM PDT, with each finalist given a 20-minute slot. The talks are grouped below by analytical approach.
The session opened at 3:50 PM with Alessandro De Giacomo of the University of Bari, Italy, who presented “Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy for In-Flight Elemental Analysis of Volcan Ash and Solid Sample.” His coauthors were Aya Taleb, Rosalba Gaudiuso, Daniela Mele, and Pierfrancesco Dellino of the University of Bari, and Marcella Dell’Aglio of IFN-CNR.
The group built an ultralight, compact LIBS instrument and mounted it on an eight-propeller drone. The aim was to measure fine volcanic ash in flight, and solid samples on the ground, in places too hazardous for people. Because measurement reproducibility in flight is limited, the team avoided external standards. Instead, they used a self-calibrated, calibration-free approach. For each spectrum, the system corrected its own spectral response by requiring the emission lines of each element to fit an apparent Boltzmann distribution, assuming apparent local thermodynamic equilibrium in the plasma.
De Giacomo noted that the method strictly holds only if departures from equilibrium affect all elements equally. Even so, the team reported quantification down to about 0.1%. Trace elements could be detected, though not always quantified, at levels similar to laboratory LIBS. He also discussed practical limits, including platform stability, signal reproducibility, and environmental effects.
At 4:10 PM, John H. Kalivas, professor emeritus at Idaho State University, presented “Solving the Multivariate Data Graphics and Analysis Access Problem for Blind and Other Vision Impaired Scientists Using Virtual Reality.” Coauthors were Rajiv Khadka of Idaho National Laboratory, and Rifat Ara Tasnim and Hyrum J. Redd of Idaho State University.
Kalivas argued that virtual reality data tools depend almost entirely on vision, which shuts out blind researchers. His team built a haptic-first system that pairs haptic gloves with spatial audio. Each sample appears as a glyph whose features encode many sample similarity measures as vibration patterns, force feedback, and musical tones.
In a pilot study, four blind university students tackled a one-class classification problem. Using mid-infrared spectra, they judged whether new clam samples belonged to an uncontaminated class. According to the presenters, participants converted a number of the algorithm’s false positives and false negatives into correct calls, explaining their reasoning aloud. Kalivas said the same tactile and audio cues could support sighted users and could be adapted to box plots, bar graphs, pie charts, and scatter plots.
At 4:30 PM, Dabin Kim, a postdoctoral associate at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), presented “Characterizing Molecular Alignment and Chemical Composition of Shape Memory Polymers Using Polarization Dependent IR Microscopy.” The project lead was Young Jong J. Lee of NIST. Coauthors were Kang Suk Lee of TMD Labs and Hak-Joon Sung of Yonsei University, both in Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Shape memory polymers return to an original form when heated, through the interplay of netpoints that store the shape and switching domains that permit the change. Kim’s team used polarization-controlled IR microscopy to image a biodegradable polymer in its original, deformed, and recovered states. The hyperspectral data indicated that structural changes during recovery were spatially uneven. Some orientation from the deformed state also appeared to remain after recovery, which the authors described as residual alignment memory.
Kim also applied the method to a polymer used in medical stents. The team compared composition at different depths to examine how surface and bulk properties may relate to biofilm formation.
The session closed at 4:50 PM with Salah Oudjertli of the Research Center in Industrial Technologies in Algiers, Algeria, the sole author of “Plasmon-Enhanced Molecular Spectroscopy of Piezoelectric Graphene–ZnO Nanotransducers Enables Ultrasound-Driven Disassembly of α-Synuclein Across the Blood–Brain Barrier.”
Oudjertli described a nanoplatform that combines graphene interfaces with gallium-doped zinc oxide nanotransducers. He reported a piezoelectric coefficient (d33) of 15.2 pm/V, higher than that of undoped zinc oxide. Graphene-based neuropeptide conjugates were said to serve two roles: amplifying signals for molecular spectroscopy and supporting transport across the blood–brain barrier through angiopep-2 targeting.
Surface plasmon resonance and related spectroscopic measurements were used to follow binding and the destabilization of α-synuclein fibrils. Cryogenic electron microscopy and piezoresponse force microscopy were used to link piezoelectric activation to fibril breakup. In transgenic mice, the presenter reported that focused ultrasound (1 MHz, 0.3 W/cm²) produced a 71.3% reduction in fibril burden and a 4.2-fold improvement in motor coordination. He suggested the approach could extend to other protein misfolding diseases.
The four FACSS Innovation Award finalists covered very different ground: atomic emission from a drone, chemometrics through touch and sound, polarized vibrational imaging of smart polymers, and plasmon-enhanced spectroscopy inside a therapeutic nanodevice. A shared thread was moving spectroscopic measurement beyond its usual setting, whether into hazardous airspace, into the hands of blind analysts, into the internal structure of a material, or into living tissue. Each presenter also identified open questions, from equilibrium assumptions in calibration-free LIBS to the small size of the virtual reality pilot study. Together, the talks offered a broad view of where analytical spectroscopy may be heading.
