Jonathan V. Sweedler, Eiszner Family Endowed Chair Chemistry, has been selected to receive the Pittsburgh Spectroscopy Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the field of applied spectroscopy.
The award was established in 1957 and is given by the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh and is presented annually at the Pittcon Conference + Exposition, which will be in April 2027. The recipient receives a cash award, travel expenses to Pittcon, and is featured as a keynote or honored speaker in a dedicated award symposium named in their honor.
According to the award announcement, Sweedler's two career-spanning research interests involve analytical neurochemistry and improving small volume measurements. They have created new mass spectrometry-based measurement tools to characterize small-volume samples for their metabolites, lipids, and peptides, with a special focus on cell-cell signaling molecules. His research group has created and validated a range of unique cell sampling approaches, capillary scale separations, mass spectrometry imaging approaches, single-cell and single organelle mass spectrometry, neurometabolite and neuropeptide characterization efforts. They have applied these tools to determine the lipids, transmitters and peptides in samples obtained from brain regions, individual cells, and specific cellular domains in a wide range of animal models.
In terms of novel neurochemistry, they have discovered new neuromodulatory compounds, such as unusual indoles, lipid isomers and D-amino acids, and characterized their actions. They have uncovered more neuropeptides and hormones in a range of animal models, including unusual peptide modifications, than any other neuropeptide discovery effort.
Sweedler has received numerous awards including the Instrumentation Award from the Analytical Division of the ACS, the Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry Award, and the ACS Award in Analytical Chemistry. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was the Editor-in-Chief for Analytical Chemistry from 2012 through 2026. He is affiliated with the Institute of Genomic Biology and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and is a Biohub Investigator.
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.
Illinois Chemistry alumna Elizabeth Neumann (Ph.D., '19), who was advised by Sweedler, will also be honored at the Pittcon conference as the recipient of the Pittcon Achievement Award.