The Coblentz Society is pleased to honor the achievements of Dr. Richard Crocombe with the 2012 Williams-Wright Award. Richard’s enthusiasm and aptitude in making advanced technologies accessible to a wider audience is evident throughout his career. 

Richard has been at the heart of three major revolutions in spectroscopy technology. The first revolution used microprocessors, which converted the room-sized systems of the 1970s to the bench-top spectrometers of the 1980s and beyond. The second revolution incorporated the CCD detector for visible, atomic and Raman spectroscopies. Thirdly, the use of telecomm photonics technology shrunk spectrometers to the size of a microchip with all the performance and reliability benefits that have been realized in integrated circuits. Together, these revolutions have enabled vibrational spectroscopy to become a widely used analytical technique in fields ranging from polymer analysis to process monitoring.

Richard studied chemistry at Oxford University in England.  One of his tutors there was Leonard Woodward, a pioneering Raman spectroscopist. The experiences at Oxford sparked his interest in vibrational spectroscopy. After graduating, he went to the University of Southampton in England to earn a Ph.D. with Prof. Ian Beattie. During a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Tennessee, with Prof. Gleb Mamantov, Richard worked on FT-IR spectroscopy and infrared laser chemistry, and also some early work on time resolved spectroscopy and gas chromatography/FT-IR.  His colleagues there included Jim de Haseth and Arlene Garrison.

Richard is also an active member in professional societies. He has been a longtime member of the Coblentz society, the Society for Applied Spectroscopy (chair of the New England Section in 2004-5 and 2006-7), other professional societies, and has organized symposia at major conferences like FACSS, EAS and the Pittsburgh Conference. 

The Williams-Wright award will be presented to Richard at Pittcon 2012 in a special award session. 

Congratulations Richard! 

    The Coblentz Society's Williams-Wright Award is presented annually to an industrial spectroscopist who has made significant contributions to vibrational spectroscopy while working in industry. The work may include infrared and/or Raman spectroscopy, instrumental development as well as theory, and applications of vibrational spectroscopy. Government labs are not considered industry in this definition. No restrictions are placed on the selection of the Awardee because of age, sex, or nationality, but the Awardee must still be working at the time the award is presented. The award consists of a frame certificate and an honorarium. In order to ensure that the award is based on an independent evaluation of the candidate’s achievements, the selection is made by a committee chosen by the Coblentz Society.

    The Award is presented each year at the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy. The Williams-Wright Award Symposium is held in honor of the awardee and immediately follows the presentation. In the picture to the right, Patrick Treado was presented the 2010 Award with Brian C. Smith (committee chair),  Ian Lewis (Society President), Don A. Clark, Kathyrn S. Kalasinsky, and Steven Christesen (symposium speakers). 

    The nomination should clearly state the significance of the contribution made by the nominee, e.g., the introduction of novel methods, techniques or theories; innovative work in the field of vibrational spectroscopy; significant improvement on existing methods, theory or techniques; or important impact on the field of vibrational spectroscopy arising from the volume of contributions in a specific area. The nomination packet should include a resume of the nominee's career including a publication list. Seconding letters to the nomination are useful, but not necessary. Files on nominees will be kept active for three years, after which the candidate must either be renominated with an updated file, or the file will be closed. Nominations should be sent to the Chair of the Williams-Wright Award Selection Committee. Nominations will close May 1st.

Please send nomination packages (email is preferred) to:

2012-2013 Chair 

 

 Ms. Shawn Mehrens