FACSS is proud to support the development of the next generation of leaders in analytical science. Pre-doctoral students presenting at the conference are encouraged to submit applications for the FACSS Student Award and the Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Award. Both awards recognize research excellence but highlight the different ways that this may be achieved.
The FACSS Student Award is given to the student who has furthered the state-of-the-art in their chosen field(s) and in so doing, advanced the understanding of important scientific or societal questions. The recipient will have a strong research record and be identifiable as an emerging leader in analytical chemistry.
The winner(s) of the Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Award will best exemplify the extraordinary creativity of the award’s namesake, whose deep understanding of the chemistry and physics of measurement science allowed him to find new connections and applications that eluded most practitioners. The recipient(s) and their work will be seen as potentially defining the future practice of analytical chemistry. To learn more about the remarkable contributions of Tomas B. Hirschfeld, click here.
To be considered for either award, students must submit an abstract for oral presentation at SciX, then submit the following as a single PDF file:
Please submit all of the above in one combined PDF during abstract submission by the oral abstract deadline.
If you have any questions, please contact us at scix@scixconference.org.
Alexis Weber
Alexis Weber is a 3rd year Ph.D. Candidate in Dr. Igor Lednev’s lab in the Department of Chemistry at the University at Albany, SUNY. She was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. She received her Bachelor of Science in Forensic Science – Analytical Track at the University of Central Florida (UCF). This is where she first became interested in research, specifically spectroscopy. And it was during her undergraduate course work that she realized forensic chemistry was the field she wanted to pursue. After completing her B.S. in Forensic Science, she decided to continue with her education, leaving Florida to pursue a Master of Science in Forensic Science at the University of New Haven (UNH) in Connecticut. Under the guidance of Dr. Virginia Maxwell, Alexis’ researched focused on the use of spectroscopy for fiber analysis.
While finishing her Master program, she decided to keep moving up the east coast and applied for the Doctoral Program for analytical chemistry. She had the pleasure of being introduced to Dr. Igor Lednev and was offered a position in his laboratory. Which has allowed her to work on research involving the analysis of body fluids using vibrational spectroscopy. Specifically, her work focuses on laying the foundation for the creation of a needed methodology for determining the time since deposition of bloodstains using vibrational and fluorescence spectroscopy. Her research has resulted in five first-author publications of seven total publications and presented her research at several scientific conferences. She has been recognized by awards in different scientific communities, including the University at Albany President’s Award for Academic Leadership.
On top of her academic achievements, she is the Chief Operating Officer of SupreMEtric LLC, a university spin-off start-up founded by Dr. Lednev. This company focuses on the commercialization of Raman spectroscopy products paired with chemometrics for to identify body fluids. With this experience she has had a unique opportunity to balance being both a member of academia as well as learning about the science industry. Due to this unique experience, Alexis considers herself at a crossroads for the focus of my future career between academia and industry. Though she knows no matter what, her aspirations analytical forensic chemistry will remain her focus.
Sayantan Mahapatra
Sayantan Mahapatra is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Chemistry with a focus on single-molecule chemical analysis of surface structures at the University of Illinois Chicago. In 2015, he earned a Bachelor’s degree (B.Sc.) in Chemistry with minors in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Calcutta, India. Following that, he obtained a Master’s degree (M.Sc.) in Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 2017 and moved to Chicago to pursue his doctoral studies in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois Chicago under the supervision of Dr. Nan Jiang.
His current research interest is mainly focused on Angstrom-scale chemical analysis of surface-supported molecular structure (single-molecule) and two-dimensional materials using ultrahigh vacuum tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (UHV-TERS) technique. His research integrates scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) with optical spectroscopy inside UHV to understand some of the vital chemistry and physics-related problems in the single-molecule study ranging from spectroscopy to molecular-level catalysis. Besides, single-molecule engineering of precursor molecules towards different desired products on the surface is another area that draws his attention. With atomically confined light at the STM tip apex, the highly energetic plasmons generated at the tip apex can be specifically utilized to probe certain chemical reactions. So far, he has six first-author publications, including one JACS and one Nano Letters.
Sayantan has received multiple awards during his time at the University of Illinois Chicago. In 2021, he received Dean’s Scholar Fellow Award from UIC Graduate College. He is a member of the American Vacuum Society (AVS), where he earned the Morton M. Traum Student Award in 2020 and the Russel and Sigurd Varian Award in 2021. In India, he was an Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) fellow funded by the Govt. of India. Outside the lab, Sayantan loves to play soccer, cricket, hiking, or watch the night sky.
Anna Wójtowicz
Anna Wójtowicz is a 4th-year Ph.D. Candidate at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland under the mentorship of Prof. R. Wietecha-Posłuszny. Her Ph.D. project aims to develop and implement novel spectroscopic techniques for practical forensic and analytical chemistry.
Before entering the Ph.D. program, Anna completed her bachelor’s and master’s studies in Chemistry at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In her research, she dealt with the spectroscopic analysis of bloodstains for forensic purposes. During her studies, she also gained significant international experience by taking two summer internships in leading research laboratories in the United Kingdom, successively at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. Then, in the second year of her doctoral studies, she received a prestigious scholarship from the Iwanowska Program offered by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange for outstanding young researchers and carried out a one-year research project in the laboratory of Prof. Igor Lednev at the University at Albany, State University of New York, USA. She worked on biological stain analysis for forensic purposes using fluorescence, infrared, and Raman spectroscopy in combination with advanced statistics, with a particular focus on menstrual bloodstain aging.
Anna’s work resulted in multiple peer-reviewed publications that she has presented at numerous local, national, and international scientific conferences. The results obtained have already allowed one to advance the understanding of the essence of changes in biological tissues and fluids and to develop new methods of identification and detection that may define the future of forensic analytical chemistry. This includes, in particular, the development of new methods of detecting postmortem changes in vitreous humor using infrared spectroscopy, capturing post-deposition changes in menstrual bloodstains using fluorescence, and testing the stability of psychoactive substances in alternative matrices, vitreous humor and liver, using liquid chromatography with a mass detector.
2021
FACSS Student Award
Vanessa Cupil-Garcia, Duke University
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Nicolas Morato, Purdue University
Grant Myres, University of Utah
2020
Not awarded
2019
FACSS Student Award
Ewelina Mistek, SUNY Albany
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Shachi Mittal, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Erika Portero, University of Maryland College Park
2018
FACSS Student Award
Edward D. Hoegg, Clemson University
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Katie Spalding, University of Strathclyde
2017
FACSS Student Award
Nicholas Riley, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Aboualizadeh Ebrahim, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee
Paidi Santosh, Johns Hopkins University
2016
FACSS Student Award
Mustafa Unal, Case Western Reserve University
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Kyle Doty, SUNY Albany
Mario Saucedo-Espinosa,Rochester Institute of Technology
2015
FACSS Student Awards
Marie Richard-Lacroix, University of Montreal
Lynn X. Zhang, Clemson University
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Stephanie DeJong, University of South Carolina
Patrik K. Johansson, University of Washington
2014
FACSS Student Award
James R. Hands, University of Central Lancashire
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Menglian Zhang, Ohio University
Andrew Schwartz, Indiana University
2013
FACSS Student Award
Larry Gibson, University of Notre Dame
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Gloria Sheynkman, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Bai Nie, Michigan State University
2012
FACSS Student Award
Ali Khumaeni, University of Fukui, Japan
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Nathaniel Gomer, University of South Carolina
Rohith Reddy, University of Illinois
2011
FACSS Student Award
Yun Zhang, Ohio University
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Award
Olivier R. Bolduc, University of Montreal
2010
FACSS Student Award
Jacob Shelley, Indiana University
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Ishan Barman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Anil Kumaar Kodali, University of Illinois
2009
FACSS Student Award
Yuze Sun, University of Missouri
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Award
Matthew Lockett, University of Wisconsin
2008
FACSS Student Award
David Strasfeld, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Christopher R. Field, University of Illinois
Matthew Keller, Vanderbilt University
2007
FACSS Student Award
Sen Li, Purdue University
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Matthew Schulmerich, University of Michigan
Junrong Zheng, Stanford University
2006
FACSS Student Award
Daniel B. Bassil, University of Missouri, Columbia
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Andrea Tao, University of California, Berkeley
Tim M. Brewer, Clemson University
2005
FACSS Student Award
Allen E. Haddrell, Simon Fraser University
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Award
Jean-Francois Masson, Arizona State University
2004
FACSS Student Award
Lawrence W. Dick, Jr., Duke University
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Award
Ryan J. Priore, University of South Carolina
2003
FACSS Student Award
Yongfen Chen, University of New Orleans
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Award
Brandon T. Ruotolo, Texas A&M University
2002
FACSS Student Award
James H. Barnes IV, Indiana University
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Award
Christian Pellerin, University Laval
2001
FACSS Student Award
Heather Peters, Wake Forest University
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Award
Michael Doescher, University of South Carolina
2000
FACSS Student Award
Christopher D. Zangmeister, University of Arizona
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Award
Dimitri Pappas, University of Florida
1999
FACSS Student Award
Renee JiJi, Arizona State University
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Award
Sara L. McIntosh, Duke University
1998
FACSS Student Award
John A. McLean, George Washington University
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Award
Susan L. R. Barker, University of Michigan
1997
FACSS Student Award
Bryan C. Castle, University of Florida
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Darren Dunphy, University of Arizona
Radislav Potyrailo, Indiana University
1996
FACSS Student Award
Christine M. Ingersoll, State University of New York at Buffalo
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Paul Edmiston, University of Arizona
Steven R. Emory, Indiana University
Dana M. Spence, Michigan State University
1995
FACSS Student Award
David E. Cliffel, University of Texas at Austin
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Curtis D. Cleven, Purdue University
Robert J. Willicut, Louisiana State University
Jeremy M. Shaver, Duke University
1994
FACSS Student Award
Diana S. West, Wright State University
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Jeanette K. Rice, State University of New York at Buffalo
W. Russell Everett, University of Arkansas
1993
FACSS Student Award
Michael Ruberto, Seton Hall University
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Ray Bakhtiar, North Dakota State University
Sheryl Ann Tucker, University of North Texas
1992
FACSS Student Award
Evelyn Guizhen Su, University of Connecticut
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Vasilis Gregoriou, Duke University
Patrick A. Limbach, Ohio State University
Jeff Mazzeo, Northeastern University
1991
FACSS Student Award
Rebecca M. Dittmar, Duke University
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Scott E. Van Bramer, University of Colorado
Marilyn O’Grady, Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Chris G. Gill, University of British Columbia
1990
FACSS Student Award
Richard L. Irwin, University of Connecticut
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Paul Shiundu, University of British Columbia
1989
FACSS Student Award
Patrick J. Treado, University of Michigan
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Renato Zenobi, Stanford University
Mingda Wang, Ohio State University
1988
FACSS Student Award
George Yefchak, Michigan State University
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
James T. Cronin, University of Delaware
Sue E. Zhu, Villanova University
1987
Tomas Hirschfeld Scholar Awards
Jonathan V. Sweedler, University of Arizona
Brad Tenge, University of Washington
Peter Wentzell, Michigan State University