2021 Awardee
The Coblentz Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Ian R. Lewis of Kaiser Optical Systems, Inc., an Endress+Hauser company, has been selected as the recipient of the 2021 Williams-Wright Award. The Williams–Wright Award is presented annually to an industrial spectroscopist who has made significant contributions to vibrational spectroscopy while working in industry. The award will be officially conferred during the Williams-Wright Award Symposium at the Pittsburgh Conference, which was to be held March 6-10, 2021 in New Orleans, Louisiana USA but will be held virtually. The 2021 Award Symposium will feature an award address by Ian and talks from his invited speakers.Ian received his B.Sc. in chemistry and chemical technology and his Ph.D. in Polymer Science & Spectroscopy from the University of Bradford, UK. While at Bradford, his Ph.D. covered the polymerization, characterization, and reactions of poly-dienes. During his Ph.D. studies he discovered a passion for the application of vibrational spectroscopy and had an opportunity to work with FT-IR, far-IR, Raman, micro-Raman, and hyper-Raman. He conducted experiments to couple a Raman spectrometer to a reactor using a flow-cell and investigated the coupling of Raman to a flow-cell as an optical composition analyzer for gel permeation (GPC) / size exclusion (SEC) chromatography. Outside of his Ph.D. work and with Professor Howell Edwards, his co-advisor, he investigated the application of Raman to arts & antiquities, bio-based lichen degradation, novel characterization of compounds for electronic purposes, the “disease” state of plastic dolls, and the impact of polymer solids and salts dissolution in water.
Ian postdoc-ed at the University of Idaho with Professor Peter Griffiths. During his time there he contributed to the team that worked on projects for the DOE and FBI. These projects were part of efforts to assist in the environmental clean-up of nuclear processing facilities and the detection of explosives in the aviation transportation system. During his years in Idaho, he started consulting with several Raman companies and started his scientific volunteering by organizing Raman sessions at the FACSS conference.
In 1996, Ian joined Kaiser Optical Systems to support the development and implementation of Raman in industrial settings. Ian currently holds the position of Director of Marketing and manages the marketing communications and product management groups at Kaiser. At Kaiser, he has worked with internal and external stakeholders to develop products, applications, and solutions to address the challenges of moving laboratory Raman-based analyses to reliable and transferable process control measurements.
During his career Ian has chaired the ASTM subcommittee on Raman (E13.08), has served as the Program Chair of FACSS in 2007 (Memphis) and as co-program chair of ICAVS 10 in 2019 (Auckland, NZ). He has also served on the program committee or as a session organizer at FACSS, SciX, ICAVS, ICORS, and EAS, and as an invited speaker at the above conferences as well as Pittcon, and IFPAC. Over the course of his career, he has organized or co-organized more than 200 technical sessions in addition to teaching short courses on Raman at conferences and at customer sites.
Ian has publishing over 50 papers and 100 conference proceedings. He co-authored Handbook of Raman Spectroscopy: From the Research Laboratory to the Process Line, has authored or co-authored seven other book chapters, and co-authored the first USP general monograph on Raman Spectroscopy (USP-1120). He is a reviewer for numerous journals in analytical chemistry, is an editorial board member for Applied Spectroscopy, Spectroscopy, and American Pharmaceutical Review and has been a guest editor for special issues of Applied Spectroscopy and Vibrational Spectroscopy.
Ian’s previously awards include the Charles Mann Award for Applied Raman from FACSS, elected as a Fellow of SAS (2011) and Fellow of RSC (2018), Distinguished Service Awards from both FACSS and SAS, and Honorary Membership from the Coblentz Society.
History and Nomination Process
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, theories, 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 resumé 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 re-nominated with an updated file, or the file will be closed. Nominations close May 1, 2021 for the 2022 award.
Please send nomination packages via email to:
Recipients of the Williams-Wright Award
2020 Christopher D. Brown
2019 Wolfgang Petrich
2018 Charles R. (Chuck) Anderson
2017 Slobodan Sasic
2016 Drouet Warren Vidrine
2015 Jagdeesh Bandekar
2014 Mike Doyle
2013 John Coates
2012 Richard Crocombe
2011 Howard Mark
2010 Patrick Treado
2009 Jerome J. Workman
2008 Rina Dukor
2007 Michael Carrabba
2006 Harry Owen
2005 Fran Adar
2004 Neil Lewis
2003 Neil Everall
2002 Isao Noda
2001 Raul Curbelo
2000 John A. Reffner
1999 Donald Kuehl
1998 Henry Buijs
1997 Michael J. Pelletier
1996 Robert G. Messerschmidt
1995 Michael R. Philpott
1994 John M. Chalmers
1993 Curtis Marcott
1992 Timothy Harris
1991 Robert J. Obremski
1990 John F. Rabolt
1989 D. Bruce Chase
1988 Darwin L. Wood
1987 A. Lee Smith
1986 Abe Savitsky/Joseph J. Barrett
1985 Clara D. Craver/Richard A. Nyquist
1984 Robert Jakobsen
1983 Harry Willis
1982 Robert Hannah
1981 Paul Wilks/James Harrick
1980 Jeanette Grasselli
1979 Norman Colthup
1978 Norman Wright