I am pleased to announce that Prof. Alex Scheeline is the co-winner of this year’s FACSS Innovation Award, given by the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies. This is a juried prize awarded to the most innovative, creative, and outstanding work that is making its world debut at a FACSS conference. The winner is selected from a special oral session featuring five candidates chosen from the many talks contributed to the program.
Prof. Scheeline and his co-author Bui Anh Thu from Vietnam National University of Science in Hanoi won for their invention of a way to use CMOS cameras in cell-phones to perform absorption, reflection, and fluorescence spectroscopy. By cleverly taking advantage of the fact that the camera detectors collect over a certain area, and solving issues related to alignment, calibration, dynamic range, and data reduction, the researchers showed that it is possible to obtain collect spectra with good signal-to-noise ratios, and to do so nearly instantaneously. Their results point the way to the development of truly portable and inexpensive spectrometers that can be used for a variety of field applications. The research is being commercialized by Prof. Scheeline’s start-up company SpectroClick, Inc.
Professor Scheeline received his B.S. degree from Michigan State University in 1974 and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1978. He joined the faculty at Illinois in 1981 and became professor emeritus in 2012. He has published extensively on the topics of nonlinear dynamics, oscillating reactions, and oxidative stress, and has previously received the William F. Meggars Award of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy, a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Special Grant in the Chemical Sciences, and is a Fellow of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy.
by: Department Head Greg Girolami