Sanford Asher, chemistry professor at the University of PittsburghPhoto courtesy of PittconPittsburgh, PA—September 28, 2015. Pittcon and its sponsoring society, The Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh (SACP) are pleased to announce Sanford Asher as the recipient of the 2016 SACP Award.

Asher will accept this prestigious award at Pittcon 2016 which takes place March 6-10, in Atlanta, Georgia. His session, “Photonic Crystal Hydrogel and Organogel Sensors for Chemical and Biological Analytes,” will include a discussion of sensing motifs that utilize 2-D and 3-D arrays and monolayers of particles embedded onto a molecular recognition polymer hydrogel networks.

The SACP Analytical Chemistry Award, established in 1957, is presented annually to recognize outstanding contributions to the field of analytical chemistry by the introduction of a significant technique, theory, instrument or by providing exceptional training for analytical chemists.

Asher’s research focuses on the development of novel optical materials in the broad areas of chemical detection and the development of spectroscopy for molecular identification and structural determination. His group pioneered the development of photonic crystals for optical devices and for photonic crystal sensors and deep UV resonance spectroscopy. He developed methods to determine the first structural stages in protein folding and is developing instrumentation and methods for the standoff detection of explosives. He is involved in work to send a deep UV Raman instrument on the 2020 Mars Lander to search for evidence of life.

Asher received his BA in chemistry from the University of Missouri, St. Louis in 1971 and received his Ph.D. in biophysical chemistry from the Unviersity of California, Berkeley in 1977. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard in Applied Physics between 1977 and 1980. He joined the faculty in chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh in 1980. Sandy is now Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh. He has published almost 300 journal papers, has been named as an inventor on 28 patents in the field of photonic crystals and optical instrumentation.