Robert Graham Cooks is the Henry Bohn Hass Distinguished Professor of Chemistry in the Aston Laboratories for Mass Spectrometry at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and ...

. He is an ISI Highly Cited Chemist, with over 1,000 publications and an H-index of 134.

Education

Cooks received a bachelor of science and master of science degrees from the

University of Natal The University of Natal was a university in the former South African province Natal which later became KwaZulu-Natal. The University of Natal no longer exists as a distinct legal entity, as it was incorporated into the University of KwaZulu- ...

in South Africa in 1961 and 1963, respectively. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Natal in 1965 and a second Ph.D. from

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

in 1967, where he worked with Peter Sykes. He then did post-doctoral work at Cambridge with Dudley Williams.

Career

Cooks became an Assistant Professor at

Kansas State University Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant college in 1863 and was the first public insti ...

from 1968 to 1971. In 1971, he took a position at

. He became a Professor of Chemistry in 1980 and was appointed the Henry Bohn Hass Distinguished Professor in 1990. Cooks was co-editor of the ''

Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry The ''Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes an annual volume of review articles relevant to analytical chemistry. It was established in 2008 and is published by Annual Reviews. History The ''A ...

'' from 2013-2017.

Select research interests

Research in Cooks' laboratory (the Aston Laboratories) has contributed to a diverse assortment of areas within

mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a '' mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is u ...

, ranging from fundamental research to instrument and method development to applications. Cooks' research interests over the course of his career have included the study of

gas-phase ion chemistry Gas phase ion chemistry is a field of science encompassed within both chemistry and physics. It is the science that studies ions and molecules in the gas phase, most often enabled by some form of mass spectrometry. By far the most important app ...

tandem mass spectrometry Tandem mass spectrometry, also known as MS/MS or MS2, is a technique in instrumental analysis where two or more mass analyzers are coupled together using an additional reaction step to increase their abilities to analyse chemical samples. A comm ...

, angle-resolved mass spectrometry and energy-resolved mass spectrometry (ERMS); dissociation processes, including collision-induced dissociation (CID), surface-induced dissociation (SID), and photodissociation (PD); and desorption processes, including secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), laser desorption ionization (LD) and desorption electrospray ionization (DESI). His research has ranged through areas from preparative mass spectrometry, ionization techniques and quadrupole ion traps (QITs) and related technologies to as far afield as

abiogenisis In biology, abiogenesis (from a- 'not' + Greek bios 'life' + genesis 'origin') or the origin of life is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. The prevailing scientific hypothes ...

(also known as "the origin of life") via

homochirality Homochirality is a uniformity of chirality, or handedness. Objects are chiral when they cannot be superposed on their mirror images. For example, the left and right hands of a human are approximately mirror images of each other but are not their ow ...

Awards and fellowships

* 1984 ACS Analytical Division's Chemical Instrumentation Award * 1985 Thomson Medal for International Service to Mass Spectrometry * 1990 and 1995 NSF Special Creativity Award * 1991 Frank H. Field & Joe Franklin Award, (ACS Award for Mass Spectrometry) * 1997 Fisher Award (ACS Award for Analytical Chemistry) * 2006 Distinguished Contribution in Mass Spectrometry Award * 2008 Robert Boyle Prize for Analytical Science * 2012 F.A. Cotton Medal for Excellence in Chemical Research of the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

* 2013 Dreyfus Prize in the Chemical Sciences * 2014 ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry, shared with graduate student Livia S. Eberlin * 2015 Member,

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

* 2017 Aston Medal,

British Mass Spectrometry Society The British Mass Spectrometry Society is a registered charity founded in 1964 that encourages participation in every aspect of mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio ...

References

External links