Students To USE Reflectance Spectroscopy For New Research Projects Through 2014 Alexander Goetz Instrument Support Program

Diverse projects selected to expand the utility of near-infrared (NIR) reflectance spectroscopy into a wide range of material and resource analysis applications. End Quote

Boulder, CO (1888PressRelease) February 20, 2014 - PANalytical Boulder (formerly ASD Inc.), a global leader in high-performance analytical instrumentation and materials analysis solutions, announced today the Alexander Goetz Instrument Support Program award recipients for 2014. This is the eighth year of the program.

Through new and innovative research projects, 12 students will show the capabilities of PANalytical Boulder's advanced spectroscopy instruments. PANalytical Boulder will provide each student with temporary use of instrumentation including the industry-standard FieldSpec® 4 spectroradiometer, LabSpec® 4 laboratory instrument, or the HandHeld 2 portable spectroradiometer. Additionally, recipients are eligible to receive up to $500 (USD) toward publication charges for papers published by an approved journal, and/or reimbursement of travel costs to recipients with an accepted abstract for an oral or poster presentation at a relevant scientific conference.

Projects were selected based on technical and geographic diversity. Supported research will increase understanding of ancient cultures, climate change impacts, forensic science, forest analysis with satellite imagery, plant physiology, as well as the utility of NIR analysis for industrial polymerization. Field studies will be globally dispersed to awarded students, who are conducting research in locations such as Belize, Greenland, Nepal, Italy, and Bulgaria.

Recipients of the 2014 Goetz Instrument Support Program award and their research topics include:

Christina Bisulca, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Arizona, USA
• Proposal Title: "New Applications of Vis-NIR spectroscopy in Archaeological Science"

Tanya E. Catignani, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science, George Mason University, USA
• Proposal Title: "Remote Sensing and Soil Spectroscopy of Ancient Mayan Wetland Agriculture in Northern Belize"

Katie A. Corcoran, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Anthropology, University of Tennessee, USA
• Proposal Title: "Field Spectroscopy for Characterizing Human Grave Signatures"

Alexander Dountchev, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Forestry, Bulgaria
• Proposal Title: "Monitoring of Coniferous Vegetation Stress using Field Spectrometry, Multispectal and Hyperspectral Satellite Data"

Kyle Earnshaw, Ph.D. Candidate, Forestry and Natural Resources Department of Purdue University, USA
• Proposal Title: "Plasticity of Acacia koa Gray: effect of light quality on germination, growth rates and morphology"

Noel Flannery, M.Eng. Candidate, Department of Mechanical, Aeronautical and Biomedical Engineering, The University of Limerick, Ireland
• Proposal Title: "LED Curing for Polymerisation of Contact Lenses-Fifth Generation Design"

Ulyana Horodyskyj, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, USA
• Proposal Title: "Quantifying Glacial Albedo for Correlation with MODIS Satellite Measurements - Mt. Everest and Lhotse, Himalaya"

Gary T. LaVanchy, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Geography & the Environment, University of Denver, USA
• Proposal Title: "Using spectroscopy to assist in the estimation of groundwater recharge"

Emily Norton, Ph.D. Candidate, School of Applied Sciences, Bournemouth University, United Kingdom
· Proposal Title: Field Reflectance Spectroscopy for the Detection of Clandestine Mass Graves in Temperate Environments

Giovanni Rallo, Post-Doctoral fellowship, Department of Agricultural and Forest Sciences - Università di Palermo, Italy
• Proposal Title: "Estimation of water potential components and pressure-volume curve parameters on intact olive vegetative organs"

John A. Servello, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Biological Sciences, University of North Texas, USA
• Proposal Title: "Quantification of Collagen Content in Cortical Bone as an Indicator of Postmortem Interval: A Novel Technique Using Spectrometry "

Carolyn Stwertka, Ph.D. Candidate, Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, USA
• Proposal Title: "On a spatially and temporally varied scale, is snowgrain size or black carbon the dominant mechanism of reduction in albedo on the Greenland Ice Sheet?"

"As students around the world are becoming more familiar with the Goetz program, we've received more diverse and innovative project submissions each year, and this year is no different," said Dr. Brian Curtiss, CTO-NIR of PANalytical Boulder. "PANalytical is able to match the students' innovation with the most advanced instruments to aid their research projects. It's a wonderful partnership we've created with educational research institutions that allows us to continue to expand the boundaries of remote sensing."

The award is named for ASD Inc. (now PANalytical Boulder) co-founder and Chief Scientist Dr. Alexander Goetz, who is recognized as a pioneer in the fields of remote sensing and imaging spectrometry and developed some of the first field portable instruments.

About PANalytical
PANalytical is the world's leading supplier of analytical instrumentation and software for X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF). The materials characterization equipment is used for scientific research and development, for industrial process control applications and for semiconductor metrology.

During the last decade PANalytical has added a variety of other analysis techniques to their product portfolio. Optical emission spectrometry (OBLF GmbH, Germany), pulsed fast thermal neutron activation (Sodern, France) and near-infrared (ASD Inc.) capabilities together with XRD and XRF can provide customers with tailor-made analytical solutions for the characterization of a wide range of products such as cement, metals, nanomaterials, polymers and many more.

PANalytical's headquarters are in Almelo, the Netherlands. Fully equipped application laboratories are established in Japan, China, the USA, Brazil, and the Netherlands. PANalytical's research activities are based in Almelo (NL) and on the campus of the University of Sussex in Brighton (UK). Supply and competence centers are located on two sites in the Netherlands: Almelo (development and production of X-ray instruments) and Eindhoven (development and production of X-ray tubes) and in Boulder, USA (development and production of near-infrared instruments). PANalytical is active in all but a few countries of the world. This worldwide sales and service network ensures unrivalled levels of customer support.

The company is certified in accordance with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001.

Visit www.panalytical.com for more information about our activities.

PANalytical is part of Spectris plc, the productivity-enhancing instrumentation and controls company.

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