Gilman and Klunder Receive FACSS Distinguished Service Award

Doug Gilman and Greg Klunder will receive the 2021 FACSS Distinguished Service Award at SciX 2021, taking place September 26–October 1, in Providence, Rhode Island. The award is presented by the Governing Board of the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACSS) to an individual who has demonstrated exceptional, long-term service to the FACSS organization.

Gilman, who attended his first FACSS Conference in 1992 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, gave his first oral presentation at a scientific conference as a PhD student at FACSS 1993 in Detroit, Michigan. He was recruited for his first FACSS volunteer assignment in 2000 in Nashville, Tennessee, where he presided over a session called “Chemical Speciation.” His volunteer efforts continued, and in 2006, Gilman became Program Chair at FACSS 2006, at Disney World (Orlando, Florida).

In 2008, Gilman agreed to run for Governing Board Chair, and although the position originally was a one-year term, his stint lasted eight years. He was Governing Board Chair for FACSS 2010 in Raleigh, and for the 2011 Reno meeting where the FACSS Conference was rebranded as SciX. While he was essential to overseeing the conference’s rebranding effort, Gilman was also an integral part of the creation of the FACSS Innovation Awards and the closing Friday morning session.

After more than 15 years of service to FACSS, Gilman turned to academia. He completed his PhD in Chemistry at Penn State, as well as a post doctoral researcher. He was a faculty member of the University of Tennessee (Knoxville, Tennessee) and at Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) for 24 years.

Klunder is a staff scientist at the Forensics Scienter at Lawrence Livermore National Library (LLNL). He worked as a graduate student for Charles Boss at North Carolina State University (Raleigh, North Carolina). In 1988, Klunder attended his first FACSS conference in Boston, Massachusetts.

The networking opportunities that FACSS provided allowed Klunder to meet scientist Rick Russo, who offered him a post-doctoral research position at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. From there, he moved to LLNL. His research there is in a variety of areas, including laser spectroscopy, atomic spectroscopy, separations, mass spectrometry, and visible near infrared, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy.

In his service to FACSS/SciX, Klunder has served as Chair for the Forensics Section; the Atomic Spectroscopy Section; Awards; Program; Past Program; General; Governing Board; and Past Governing Board. He has also served on the Executive Committee as a poster judge, and as a member of the long-range planning and budget committees.