New York Society for Applied Spectroscopy

2009 Newsletter

1. Meetings

January, 2009:

Business meeting for Officers to discuss various items including Gold Medal Award selection for EAS09.  (Attendance: 7). 

March, 2009:

Virtual meeting from San Francesco CA, March 4, 2009.  Speaker: Dr. Jerry Workman, Luminous Medical, Inc. “A strategy for developing accurate and precise quantitative methods for low signal-to-noise spectroscopic applications” (Attendance: 20). 

May, 2009:

(1) NYSAS officer meeting at the Morris County Library, NJ, May 6, 2009.  Agenda includes the followings:  By Laws, Boat Ride details, Chair Elect position, gift for guest speakers, service award, task forces with new members, NYSAS sponsored workshops, Gold Medal Award at EAS, Treasurers report, Secretary's report, Officer R&R manual, Website browser package pricing, etc. (Attendance: 5). 

June, 2009:

NYSAS Annual Hudson Boat Cruise sponsored by US Military Academy, West Point, June 20, 2009.  This event also serves as a celebration ceremony for NYSAS Student Awardees.  (Attendance: 42) 

September, 2009:

Face to face and virtual meeting at Colgate Palmolive Research Center, Piscataway, NJ, September 2, 2009.  Speaker: Dr. James Veale, President, Lighthouse Instruments, “Applications for tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) in pharmaceutical development and manufacturing” (Attendance: 12)  

October, 2009:

Dinner meeting at Colgate Palmolive Global Technology Center, Piscataway, NJ, October 28th, 2009.  Speaker: Dr. Lydia Breckenridge, Research Investigator, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. “Pharmaceutical Applications of Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy” (Attendance: 12) 

November, 2009:

EAS, Gold Medal Award Sessions honoring Isao Noda, November 18, 2009, with 5 speakers.  (Attendance: 37).

--- Dr. Curtis A. Marcott, Light Light Solutions, LLC. “Application of spectral imaging using a tunable laser source.”

--- Professor Bruce Chase, Department of Materials Science, University of Delaware, “Double beam planer array infrared instrumentation: back to the future.”  

--- Professor Hai-Lung Dai, Department of Chemistry, Temple University, “Two-dimensional cross-spectra correlation for analyzing IR imission from transient radicals.” 

--- Professor Georgia A. Arbuckle, Department of Chemistry, Rutgers University, “Two-dimentional infrared spectral analysis of conducting polymers.” 

--- Dr. Isao Noda, Procter & Gamble, "Applications of two-dimentional correlation spectroscopy (2DCOD).”

December, 2009:

        Dinner meeting at Rutgers University,  Livingston Campus, December 9, 2009.  Speaker: Tomoya Uchiyama, Osaka University, Japan, “Analytical Applications of Laser Raman Microscopy Using Line Illumination as Compared to Conventional Point                               Illumination” (Attendance: 12). 

2.  NYSAS Gold Metal Award and Student Awards: 

(1) NYSAS Gold Metal Award:  The New York section of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy seeks nominations for the Gold Medal award and makes a selection in January each year. This coveted award was established in 1952 to recognize outstanding contributions to the field of Applied Spectroscopy.  The Gold Medal will be presented at a special award symposium, arranged in honor of the awardee, at the Eastern Analytical Symposium in Somerset, New Jersey.  

2009 NYSAS Gold Metal Award Winner: 

          Dr. Isao Noda, Research Fellow, Procter & Gamble. 

(2) NYSAS Student Awards: The New York section of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy selects outstanding candidates for the Undergraduate and Graduate Student Award winners in March for each year.  The Awards are presented in June in recent years at the NYSAS Annual Boat Ride - Student Award Celebration event.

2009 NYSAS Graduate Student Award Recipient:

Rachel Dibbell, SUNY at Buffalo, Department of Chemistry, Doctoral advisor:  Professor David Watson, Research topic: “Time-Resolved Spectroscopic Studies of Distance-Dependent Electron Transfer in Tethered Assemblies of CdS Quantum Dots and TiO2 Nanoparticles.”

2009 NYSAS Undergraduate Student Award Recipients:

(1) Shawn M. Gee, US Military Academy, West Point, NY, Advisor:  Professor Richard Hoff, Research topic: “Quantitation of selected pharmaceutical compounds in the USMA wastewater treatment system by single quadrupole LC-MS.”

(2) Daniel J. Walsh, Cornell University, Sibley School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Advisor:  Professor Marjolein C. H. van der Meulen, Research topic: “Raman spectroscopy reveals compositional changes in mouse tibiae following in vivo mechanical loading.”

3.  NYSAS Miscellaneous: 

(1) NYSAS has well maintained a website:  HYPERLINK "http://www.nysas.org" www.nysas.org to advocate the mission of the section, to reach out our members, and most important to house and disseminate meeting information.  In addition to the efforts that we have made such as adding business meeting minutes, a description of officer roles & responsibilities, and a recognition section, in this year, we collected suggestions from members and officers, added pictures from NYSAS activities, and timely displayed coming meeting and speaker information.  The webmaster Seetha Viswanathan has been doing a very good job to maintain and update the website. 

(2) NYSAS has been using Web or internet to host meetings to increase attendance at monthly meetings.  This is particularly important for our section given the large area that NYSAS serves along with rising gas prices and higher demands at work and home.   Removing some of the travel involved in attending meetings may help us grow our local organization and serve our members better.  

(3) Efforts have been made to solicit donations from vendors to support NYSAS activities or sponsor a student award or the food for a monthly meeting.  Our website has listed a number of vendors who make annual donations and offered links to these vendors’ website.  .

(4) A new NYSAS crystal paper weight is designed as a gift to appreciate each speaker who presented at NYSAS monthly scientific meeting.