Sweedler, Bhargava named top analytical scientists in the world

Chemistry professor Jonathan Sweedler ranks at No. 1 on the 2021 Power List of the Top 100 analytical scientists in the world, compiled by The Analytical Scientist, a publication that focuses on the people, technology and innovations shaping measurement science.

Rohit Bhargava, affiliate faculty member in chemistry, also made the annual list  that celebrates the world’s most influential analytical scientists.

• Sweedler is the James R. Eiszner Family Endowed Chair in Chemistry and Director of the School of Chemical Sciences. He was No. 1 on The Power List in 2019 as well. For the 2021 Power List, he talks about his first real mentor and the first analytical chemist he worked with as an undergraduate. His research interests are in bioanalytical chemistry, and focus on developing new methods for assaying the chemistry occurring in nanoliter-volume samples, and applying these analytical methods to characterize the molecular forms, distribution, and dynamic release of neurotransmitters and neuropeptides from a range of animal models. Professor Sweedler received his B.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of California at Davis in 1983, and his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in 1989. Thereafter, he was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University before joining the faculty at Illinois in 1991.

• Bhargava is an affiliate faculty member in chemistry and the Director of the Cancer Center at Illinois. The central theme of research in his group is the development of novel chemical imaging technology and structures that can be employed to detect, diagnose and understand tissue structure and cancer pathology. He talks about the biggest breakthrough in his field. After graduating with his PhD from Case Western Reserve University and a stint at the National Institutes of Health, Rohit has been a professor at Illinois since 2005 and has pioneered the development of infrared spectroscopic imaging, starting from his doctoral thesis that was the first in this field.