Garth Simpson on What He's Looking Forward to at EAS 2026

The Eastern Analytical Symposium (EAS) is set to take place this year at the Crowne Plaza Princeton Conference Center in Plainsboro, New Jersey, from November 16–18, 2026. As part of our coverage of this conference, Spectroscopy sat down with Garth Simpson, who is a Tarpo Professor of Chemistry at Purdue University, to talk about his upcoming talk at the conference and his group’s recent research.

In this below interview clip, Simpson shared his enthusiasm for an upcoming session on chirality at EAS 2026, citing a strong lineup of speakers and expressing hope that attendees will be just as excited. Chirality, the property of molecules that exist as nonsuperimposable mirror images, is a topic of broad interest in analytical chemistry, particularly in pharmaceutical development, where the two mirror-image forms of a compound can behave very differently in the body.

Beyond the session itself, Simpson explained what draws him to EAS. He described it as one of the meetings that bridges researchers working in academia and industry, with a particular focus on pharma. The conference, he noted, highlights a great deal of instrument development, along with the instrumental methods that come out of it, making it a natural home for scientists who build tools as well as those who use them.

Central to Simpson’s perspective is the value he sees in the intersection of these two communities. Academia, he said, tends to favor and focus on what is interesting, while the private sector and industry concentrate on what is important. In his view, the most impactful science has to check both boxes, occupying the overlap between the interesting and the important. That overlap, he said, is the central focus of the discussions and the science at EAS.

For spectroscopists and analytical chemists, the framing underscores why meetings like EAS matter. They create space for curiosity-driven research to meet the practical demands of industry, and for real-world problems to inspire new fundamental questions. A session on chirality fits that model well, as the topic pairs deep questions about molecular structure with direct consequences for drug safety, efficacy, and quality control.

Ultimately, as Simpson sees it, the science worth paying the most attention to is the science that is truly both interesting and important, and EAS is where those two goals regularly come together.

Further Reading

1. Purdue University, Garth J. Simpson. Purdue University, 2026. https://www.chem.purdue.edu/people/profile/gsimpson.html (accessed November 3, 2026).
2. Wetzel, W.; Spectroscopy Staff. EAS 2026 to Mark 65th Anniversary with Program Focused on AI and Data Integrity. Spectroscopy Online, 2026. https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/eas-2026-to-mark-65th-anniversary-with-program-focused-on-ai-and-data-integrity (accessed November 3, 2026).