Previewing the Williams-Wright Award Session at Pittcon

During Pittcon, which is taking place at the Boston Convention and Exposition Center in Boston, Massachusetts, several researchers and scientists will be presented with awards typically given out at the conference, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, the Emerging Leader in Chromatography Award, and the Williams-Wright Award, to name a few.

The Williams-Wright Award is noteworthy because it is annually given out by the Coblentz Society to recognize an industrial spectroscopist who has made significant contributions to vibrational spectroscopy through his or her work (1). This year, the Coblentz Society will present the award to Dr. David W. Schiering of 908 Devices. This award session will take place on Wednesday, March 5^th, from 8:30–11:40 am.

Coblentz Society President Luisa Profeta of Rigaku Analytical Devices will present the award to Schiering. She recently spoke to Spectroscopy about this award session, and here’s a brief preview of the session. You can find our full interview with Profeta in the literature (2).

Schiering is being recognized because of his 40-year career developing vibrational spectroscopy instruments at various companies. Over his career, he served in a leadership capacity in product and technology development at PerkinElmer, SensIR Technologies, and Thermo Electron Inc. (now Thermo Fisher Scientific), to name a few (1).

During the award session, Schiering will deliver a talk titled, “Fostering the Application of Vibrational Spectroscopy through New Instruments and Methods.” His talk will discuss some of the new technologies in vibrational spectroscopy that have emerged over the course of his career, and how these technologies came to fruition (1).

The Williams-Wright Award session will also feature four other talks from Christopher Brown of 908 Devices, Keith Carron of SKM Instruments, Bob Messerschmidt of COR Health Inc, and Andre Sommer of Molecular Microspectroscopy Laboratory.

The second talk, titled “Dave is Delightful, and Other Tales From the Fringe,” will be delivered by Brown from 9:30 to 10:00 am. In his talk, Brown will talk about his collaborations with Dave over the years, and how they’ve helped advance field applications in spectroscopy (1).

Next, from 10:00–10:30 am, Carron will speak about using state-of-the-art Raman systems in his talk, “45 Years of Developing Raman Instrumentation: Cadillacs to Big Macs.” He will also highlight his collaboration with Schiering that led to the development of the Smiths Detection Responder (1).

Then, from 10:30–11:00 am, Messerschmidt will deliver his talk, which is titled “A 40 Year Spectroscopy Hardware Journey.” In his talk, Messerschmidt will talk about his personal professional journey working with Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) microscopes (1).

And finally, Sommer will conclude the award session with a talk titled, “From Extraterrestrial to Intracorporeal: 45 Years of Molecular Spectroscopy and the Molecular Microspectroscopy Laboratory.” His talk will focus on molecular spectroscopy, discussing some of the studies that the Molecular Microspectroscopy Laboratory has conducted over the years, often in collaboration with Schiering (1).

Overall, this award session is set to be a celebration of the many advancements vibrational spectroscopy has brought the world over the past four decades. Through these five talks, attendees will learn more about the advances in instrumentation that have yielded positive benefit to society and have solved real-world issues. A history of the Williams-Wright Award is given in reference (3).

References

1. Pittcon, Technical Program. Lab Science Events. Available at: https://labscievents.pittcon.org/event/pittcon-2025/planning/UGxhbm5pbmdfMjQ1Mzc4Ng== (accessed 2025-02-20).
2. Wetzel, W. Shining a Spotlight on Spectroscopy: What to Expect at Pittcon 2025. Spectroscopy. Available at: https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/shining-a-spotlight-on-spectroscopy-what-to-expect-at-pittcon-2025 (accessed 2025-02-20).
3. Workman, J., Jr. Van Zandt Williams, Norman E. Wright, and the Legacy of the Coblentz Society. Spectroscopy 2025, 40 (1), 26–29. DOI: 10.56530/spectroscopy.vi2583d6