Current Coblentz President’s Message
March 2023
If you are going to Pittcon, there are several events to pay attention to. The Williams-Wright Award Symposium, recognizing Craig Prater, will be on Monday morning. Craig starts the day off early with his award lecture, “The Emergence of Super-resolution Photothermal Infrared Spectroscopy” and is followed by an international line-up of experts discussing diverse applications of infrared spectroscopy and imaging. I hope to see people there!
And if you are at Pittcon, we have planned an informal, no-host networking event at Iron Hill Brewery, Monday evening of Pittcon beginning at 7:00 pm. Come by and say hello. The Society for Applied Spectroscopy (SAS) has tagged along and is holding its early career and SAS student event at the same location. It should be a good time to see old friends and make new ones.
The NY/NJ SAS, NE SAS, and Coblentz-sponsored 3-Minute Thesis event is back this month. On March 16, approximately 20 students will be presenting their research with the opportunity to earn an oral presentation at SciX up for grabs. This is the continuation of last year’s effort, and special thanks to Mike George (Coblentz) and John Wasylyk (SAS) for keeping this going this year. I hope people will participate in the online event.
The mentoring mission of Coblentz is also in full swing. Online Speed Mentoring is happening April 3rd. Thank you to Jim Rydzak for keeping this program going. This is a great opportunity for all the members of our community to interact. As of writing, this there is still space for mentors and mentees to sign up. See our mentoring page for details.
Shortly after Pittcon, Coblentz is sponsoring a symposium at the Spring ACS Meeting in Indianapolis on “Bridging the Gap: Using Gas-Phase and Cluster Studies to Model the Dynamics of Complex Systems”. I encourage you to check out this session if you are at the ACS meeting. On a related topic, ISMS is in June. Check out the ISMS website for more details. Registration for ISMS is now open.
Remember, if you are organizing a meeting on a topic supported by the Coblentz Society, let us know. We want to support our members.
Congratulations to Peter Griffiths on being named the 2023 Lippincott Award winner. We are excited to celebrate his accomplishments at SciX this fall. As always, I appreciate all the efforts involved in nominating, selecting, and celebrating outstanding vibrational spectroscopists.
Speaking of SciX, this fall marks the 50th conference. The FACSS Governing Board is looking to feature historical items that have contributed to the conference. If you have ideas or items that you think might contribute to this display, please let us know.
The year is off and running, and I look forward to seeing members at these events. Please feel free to let me know how the Society is doing. I continue to invite anyone interested in becoming more involved in the society to reach out to me or one of our board members. I look forward to keeping everyone informed about the Society’s activities in the coming months.
Zachary Schultz
President of the Coblentz Society