2013 Award Recipient

    The Coblentz Society is pleased to announce that Professor Rohit Bhargava, Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been selected as the recipient of the 2013 Craver Award.  In 2006, The Coblentz Society created an award to recognize the efforts of young professional spectroscopists that have made significant contributions in applied analytical vibrational spectroscopy.  The Society has named this award for Clara D. Craver in recognition of her pioneering efforts in promoting the practice of infrared vibrational spectroscopy and her many years of service to the Coblentz Society.  Further, the Craver Award is the Society’s complement of its prestigious 'Coblentz Award' that recognizes young spectroscopists for efforts in fundamental aspects of vibrational spectroscopy.  This award is presented to Professor Bhargava in recognition of his work in the area of spectral chemical imaging, including the development of the fundamental theory and modeling of Raman and infrared chemical imaging. His work has included the application of imaging to the study of polymeric systems as well as biological systems.  

    Professor Bhargava’s research interests have spanned the areas of Instrumentation development and analysis including the development of high definition and ultrasensitive IR imaging systems, and of time-resolved IR imaging. He has also made advancements in the design and fabrication of nanostructures for optical sensing, advancements in chemometrics, high-performance computing and visualization. His work has spanned applications of spectroscopic imaging to solve various problems in composite polymers, cancer histopathology, forensics, molecular diffusion and seed grains.

    Rohit Bhargava is Bliss Faculty Scholar and Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was previously Associate (2011-2012) and Assistant Professor (2005-2011). He is also a faculty member in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Mechanical Science and Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering as well as the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. Rohit received dual B.Tech. degrees (in Chemical Engineering and Polymer Science and Engineering) from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. His doctoral thesis work at Case Western Reserve University was in the area of polymer spectroscopy. Subsequently, he worked as a Research Fellow at the National Institutes of Health in the area of biomedical vibrational spectroscopy. Research in the Bhargava laboratories focuses on fundamental optical theory for vibrational spectroscopic imaging, developing new instrumentation, application of spectroscopic imaging to biomedical and polymer problems and numerical analyses. Current research in the Bhargava group is supported by several federal agencies, industry, private foundations and competitive programs at the University of Illinois. Rohit’s work has been recognized with several research and teaching awards and he is routinely nominated to the list of teachers ranked excellent at Illinois. He is also the recipient of the 2012 FACSS Innovation Award for novel work presented for the first time at the SciX conference. His work has also been recognized with the award of the William F. Meggers Award from the Society of Applied Spectroscopy (1999 and 2002). 

    The Craver Award will be presented at the 2013 SciX Conference to be held in Milwaukee, WI September 29- October 3 at the Hyatt Regency Milwaukee.   Professor Bhargava will present the Coblentz Society’s Craver Award Plenary Lecture in Applied Vibrational Spectroscopy and a separate half-day award symposium of five invited presentations will be held following his lecture at this conference.

    The Coblentz Society announces its solicitation of nominations for the 2014 Craver Award in recognition of young investigators in applied analytical vibrational spectroscopy. Nominations for the 2014 award are accepted until August 30, 2013 and must include a detailed description of the nominee's accomplishments, a curriculum vitae or resume, and minimum of three supporting letters. Annual updates of candidate files are encouraged and will be solicited from the nomination source by the award’s committee chair.  Files of candidates will be kept active for 3 years or until the age of eligibility is exceeded. Nominations may be sent to nominations@coblentz.org

Award Description

    The Craver Award is presented annually to an outstanding young molecular spectroscopist whose efforts are in the area of applied analytical vibrational spectroscopy. The candidate must be under the age of 45 on January 1 of the year of the award. The work may include any aspect of infrared (NIR, MIR, or Far), and/or THz, and/or Raman spectroscopy in applied analytical vibrational spectroscopy. The nominees may come from an academic, government lab, or industrial backgrounds.

    

    In 2006, The Coblentz Society created an award to recognize the efforts of young professional spectroscopists that have made significant contributions in applied analytical vibrational spectroscopy. The Society has named this award for Clara D. Craver in recognition of her pioneering efforts in promoting the practice of infrared vibrational spectroscopy and her many years of service to the Coblentz Society. Further, the Craver Award is the Society’s complement of its prestigious 'Coblentz Award' that recognizes young spectroscopists for efforts in fundamental aspects of vibrational spectroscopy.  The first award was presented at FACSS in Memphis in 2007.

    The award comprises an honorarium, an engraved crystal award, and a travel allowance.

Award Symposium

    The awardee will be offered a plenary lecture to the assembled SciX conference. Further, a separate half-day award symposium honoring the award recipient and highlighting the interests of the awardee will also occur at the same conference. At right is an image from the 2010 award presentation (Boris Mizaikoff at left, Ian R. Lewis  (who was then president of the Coblentz Society) at right).

          

Recipients of the Craver Award are listed below:

Craver award lecture 2012

Below are images of the inaugural Craver Award presentation in 2007. At left is Katherine A. Bakeev, and at right is Mary W. Carrabba (who was then the President of Coblentz).