Coblentz Society CLARA Craver Award

The Coblentz Society has created an award to recognize young individuals who have made significant contributions in applied analytical vibrational spectroscopy.

The Craver Award is presented annually to an outstanding young molecular spectroscopist whose efforts are in the area of applied analytical vibrational spectroscopy. The candidate must be under the age of 45 on January 1st of the year of the award. The work may include any aspect of infrared (NIR, MIR, or Far), and/or THz, and/or Raman spectroscopy in applied analytical vibrational spectroscopy. The nominees may come from an academic, government lab, or industrial backgrounds. Click here for information on the Coblentz Society Craver Award.

2022 Recipient

Wei Min 

De. Wei Min is currently a Professor of Chemistry at Columbia University. He is also affiliated with the Department of Biomedical Engineering, the Kavli Institute for Brain Science and NeuroTechnology Center at Columbia University. After graduating from Peking University in 2003, he received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2008 studying single-molecule biophysics with Prof. Sunney Xie. After continuing his postdoctoral work in Xie group, Dr. Min joined the faculty at Columbia University in 2010, and was promoted to Full Professor there in 2017.

Dr. Min has made important contributions to the development of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy, and employed it to open up a broad range of applications. He has co-invented modern SRS microscopy and pushed its sensitivity down to single molecule level through stimulated Raman excited fluorescence (SREF) spectroscopy; his team has designed and synthesized Raman-active probes exhibiting rainbow-like spectral “colors”; his group has opened up applications including bioorthogonal chemical imaging of small biomolecules (such as lipids, amino acids, glucose, and drugs), metabolic activity imaging in animals, and super-multiplexed vibrational imaging.

Dr. Min's contribution has been recognized by a number of honors, including Scientific Achievement Award from the Royal Microscopical Society (2021), Pittsburgh Conference Achievement Award (2019), Analyst Emerging Investigator Lectureship (2018), Coblentz Award of Molecular Spectroscopy (2017), the ACS Early Career Award in Experimental Physical Chemistry (2017), Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2015), Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2013), and NIH Director's New Innovator Award (2012).

Dr. Min is a co-editor of the first SRS book entitled “Stimulated Raman Scattering Microscopy: Techniques and Applications” with ELSEVIER; he is a standing member of Cellular and Molecular Technologies Study Section of NIH; he is a co-Chair of SPIE conference on Advanced Chemical Microscopy for Life Science and Translational Medicine; he is a senior Scialog facilitator for Research Corporation for Science Advancement on Advancing BioImaging; he is an editorial/advisory board member of several journals including Analyst, Trends in Chemistry, and Analysis & Sensing; during the pandemic, he has also served as a Guest Editor of APL Photonics on a Special Issue of COVID-19 and Photonics.

Nominations

Please refer to the Coblentz website for further details.

Past Recipients

2021 Zachary D. Schultz

2020       Claudia Conti

2019       Shawn (Xiaoyun) Chen

2018       Christy Haynes

2017 Martin Zanni

2016 Karen Faulds

2015 Ji-Xin Cheng 

2014 Lynne S. Taylor

2013 Rohit Bhargava -

2012 Duncan Graham 

2011 Michael W. George

2010 Boris Mizaikoff

2009 Takeshi Hasegawa

2008 John C. Conboy

2007 Katherine Bakeev