(1) The Gerald S. Birth Award for outstanding innovation in diffuse reflection or diffuse transmission spectroscopy is conferred by the Council for Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (CNIRS) and sponsored by Unity Scientific, Inc. (website) in memory of Gerald Birth.  The late Dr. Birth was the founder of the International Diffuse Reflectance Conference (IDRC), now sponsored by the CNIRS. He also made many contributions to the instrument technology related to diffuse reflectance. It is fitting for this award to carry Dr. Birth’s name, to honor him, and to recognize his numerous innovations and contributions to the area of diffuse reflection, transmission and interaction instrumentation.

This award recognizes a specific accomplishment in advancing the Art and Science of Near Infrared Spectroscopy by a senior research scientist.  All scientists performing research in Diffuse Reflection Spectroscopy or in Diffuse Transmission Spectroscopy in the visible, NIR or mid-IR regions are eligible for the award.  The award-winning work must have been published between 01-Jan-2006 and 31-Dec-2007.  If the paper, or series of papers on a topic, has more than one author, the senior author is the person nominated for the award. The awardee (practicing or retired) may be (or have been) affiliated with industry, academia, government, or have another suitable affiliation. The awardee must be able to present the award-winning work at the IDRC meeting in Chambersburg, PA, 3- to 8- August-2008.  The award entails an honorarium of $2000.00 and expenses for his/her travel to the IDRC meeting and for an accompanying guest, up to $1500.00. The nominations were due 01-Feb-2008 and the selection process occurred during February.

(2) IDRC Travel Fellowships:  Support for students and scientists, who might otherwise be unable to attend the IDRC meeting without additional financial aid, is available from the CNIRS.  Fellowships will cover meeting registration and travel up to $1000.  Applicants should submit a resume and brief statement of how they would benefit from attending the Meeting.  In addition, individuals selected for support are expected to submit a poster of their work in the Poster Session of the IDRC. The fellowship recipients for 2008 are described in this announcement.

This year the Council sought extra funds from sponsors, to support twice as many applicants as in the previous meeting.  The CNIRS would like to thank these individuals and/or companies for their generous support:

Eigenvector Research
Opotek
Woody Barton (emaill) of Light Light Solutions
Phil Williams (email) and Diane Malley (email) of PDK Projects
Perten Instruments
Brian Mitchell (email) of Polychromix
Richard Kramer (email) of Apchem
Emil Ciurczak, consultant (email, website)
Howard Mark, consultant (email, website)
David Hopkins, consultant (email)
Karl Norris, consultant (email)

The CNIRS and these sponsors congratulate the winners of the Travel Awards and look forward to their participation in the IDRC-2008.

(3) Honorary Membership in the CNIRS:  Honorary Members are persons who have made exceptional contributions to near infrared spectroscopy and have been voted into their membership by the Governing Board of CNIRS. No more than two Honorary Members can be named in any fiscal year.  Nominations and supporting documentation are to be submitted to the Awards Committee. 

Nominations and supporting material, from within the international spectroscopy community at large, for any of the above three awards should be sent to David Hopkins, Chair of the CNIRS Awards Committee.  The deadline for all nomination materials to reach the Awards Committee was 1-Feb-2008 for the Birth Award and 22-Feb-2008 for the Travel Fellowships and Honorary Membership Award.  The Birth Award winner was announced in May 2008 and the travel fellowships were announced in June 2008.

2008 Birth Winner

Past Birth Winners

Now Here

The Tomas Hirschfeld Award, presented by the Inter-national Council for Near Infrared Spectros-copy, sponsored by Buchi. Click here for the 2008 winner and/or visit the ICNIRS website.

2008 travel fellowships announced. Click here for the recipients.