Fall 2009 Training Course Offerings

The purpose of this blog is to offer my readers advice on how to improve their chemical analyses. One of the best ways to improve your analyses is to take a training course. The purpose of this blog post is to alert you to upcoming training courses I will be teaching that you can take this year. These are mostly FTIR courses, along with some offerings of my Principles of Analytical Chemistry and Principles of Organic Chemistry courses.

There are a number of training course delivery options available to you here, including public and online training courses. Please see previous blog posts for the relative advantages and disadvantages of these course delivery options. For more info about Spectros Associates FTIR courses go here: http://www.spectros1.com/2009 .

Public FTIR Training Course Series Sponsored by Spectros Associates
Sept. 21-25 2009, Minneapolis MN
This is my 5-day series of FTIR courses. You can register for as many days as you wish. For more info or to register click here: http://www.spectros1.com/2009 .
Fundamentals of FTIR Sept. 21
Hands-On FTIR Sample Preparation Sept. 22
Infrared Spectral Interpretation I Sept. 23
Infrared Spectral Interpretation II Sept. 24
Infrared Spectral Interpretation III Sept. 25

Oct. 5-9, 2009, Cleveland OH
This is my 5-day series of FTIR courses. You can register for as many days as you wish. For more info or to register click here: http://www.spectros1.com/2009 .
Fundamentals of FTIR Oct. 5
Hands-On FTIR Sample Preparation Oct. 6
Infrared Spectral Interpretation I Oct. 7
Infrared Spectral Interpretation II Oct. 8
Infrared Spectral Interpretation III Oct. 9

FTIR Courses I Will be Teaching at Scientific Meetings
Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACSS) Meeting, Louisville KY. Oct. 19-20
I will be teaching IR Spectral interpretation I&II as a single two-day course. Details here: https://facss.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1450 .

Eastern Analytical Symposium (EAS) Meeting, Nov. 18-19, Somerset NJ.
I will be teaching IR Spectral Interpretation I on Nov. 18 and IR Spectral Interpretation II on Nov. 19. You can take each course by itself or take the pair. More info here: http://www.eas.org/education/ .

Online Courses I teach Sponsored by the American Chemical Society
For more info on these courses click here:
http://www.proed.acs.org/online_courses/online_courses.cfm .

Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy: Three 2.5 hour online sessions, Sept. 14, 16, &18, 11:00 AM to 1:30 PM EDT. This is similar to the Fundamentals of FTIR course I teach.

Infrared Spectral Interpretation Basic: two 3.5 hour online sessions, Sept. 29 & 30, Noon to 3:30 PM EDT. This is similar to the Infrared Spectral Interpretation I course I teach.

Infrared Spectral Interpretation Intermediate: two 3.5 hour online sessions, Oct. 27 & 28, Noon to 3:30 PM EDT. This is similar to the Infrared Spectral Interpretation II course I teach.

Principles of Analytical Chemistry: three 2.5 hour online sessions. Sept. 28, Oct. 1 &2, Noon to 2:30 PM EDT.

Principles of Analytical Chemistry II: Three 2.5 hour online sessions, Nov.30, Dec. 2 &4. 11:00 AM to 1:30 PM EDT.

Public Principles of Chemistry Course Offerings
I teach these exclusively through the Center for Professional Innovation & Education: www.cfpie.com.

Principles of Organic Chemistry: Malvern PA, Nov. 10-11, 2009. More info here: http://www.cfpie.com/showitem.aspx?productid=108 .

Principles of Analytical Chemistry: Malvern PA, Nov. 12-13, 2009. More info here: http://www.cfpie.com/showitem.aspx?productid=107 .

I hope to see you at one or more of these courses soon!

R.I.P. Norm Colthup (1924-2009)

It might seem odd for me to be posting an obituary in a blog about infrared spectroscopy, but the passing of Norm Colthup is worth noting by anyone who has ever measured or interpreted an infrared spectrum. Norm spent most of his career working for American Cyanamid, now known as Cytec Industries. In the 1940s Norm was involved in designing and building one of the first infrared spectrometers used in industry. Subsequent to this he measured a number of spectra and saw a need for summarizing the peak positions of functional groups. He then invented the now well known Colthup Chart, which summarizes the wavenumber regions where different functional groups absorb in an easy-to-read format. It is safe to say that thousands of people around the world have used the Colthup chart since Norm developed it over 50 years ago.

Norm also co-authored two seminal books on infrared spectroscopy. I have learned a great deal from his books. Norm was the 1979 recipient of the Williams-Wright Award of the Coblentz Society, presented annually to an industrial spectroscopist who has made significant contributions to vibrational spectroscopy while working in industry (I am the current chair of Coblentz Society’s Williams-Wright committee. More on the 2010 winner in a later post). Norm also received the Maurice F. Hasler Award, presented by the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh to a scientist having notable achievements in spectroscopy that have resulted in significant applications of broad utility. Norm also shared his knowledge and love of infrared spectroscopy by teaching short courses, which in part was an inspiration for my career as an FTIR short course instructor. Norm will be sorely missed by a large community of colleagues, family, and friends