10:45 a.m., March 5, 2009----John F. Rabolt, the Karl W. and Renate Böer Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Delaware, has received the New York State Society of Applied Spectroscopy's Gold Medal. The award was conferred at the Eastern Analytical Society Meeting, held recently in New Brunswick, N.J.

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The Gold Medal has been awarded annually since 1952 to “advance and disseminate knowledge and information concerning the art and science of spectroscopy and other allied sciences.”

Rabolt was recognized for his contributions to the understanding of the structure and morphology of materials through his use of infrared and Raman spectroscopy.

He is credited with co-inventing two new spectroscopic techniques: Fourier Transform Raman spectroscopy in 1986, which is now commercialized by four companies and currently found in more than 2,000 laboratories worldwide, and Planar Array Infrared (PA-IR) spectroscopy, an ultrafast, portable IR technique for materials characterization.

The latter is the basis of a small startup company, PAIR Technologies LLC, founded in 2005.

“The excellence of John's work is supported by the large number of prestigious awards that he has won, including every major spectroscopy award in the field,” says Michael Chajes, dean of the College of Engineering.

Rabolt joined the University of Delaware faculty in 1996 as chairperson of the materials science program. The program achieved departmental status in 1998, and under Rabolt's leadership it has grown to include 14 faculty members.

From 1992-2001, Rabolt was associate editor of the American Chemical Society journal, Macromolecules, and he has served on the editorial boards of a number of other journals, including Analytical Chemistry.

He has also held a number of important leadership positions during his career, including chairperson of the American Physical Society's Division of Polymer Physics and chairperson of three Gordon Research Conferences.

In addition, he was a member of NASA's Microgravity Materials Science Advisory Panel for a decade.

Rabolt earned his bachelor's degree in physics from the State University of New York at Oneonta and his Ph.D. in chemical physics from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

Article by Diane Kukich