SAS Members and Spectroscopists Reaching Out
SAS members are not only found in the lab, but they are also busy giving back to the community helping to fulfill SAS' mission of education and outreach. If you are doing something for your community, let us know by sending us an email and pictures to sasadmin@s-a-s.org. Here are some things our members are doing right now:
Spectroscopists Helping Spectroscopists
SAS Members Fred Haibach and Ellen Miseo launch Spectroscopists Helping Spectroscopists
On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, leaving the inhabitants without clean water, food, utilities and transportation. As you read this, the infrastructure is slowly being restored. The news you hear, however, doesn’t indicate the outsized impact on scientists and their families. The Society for Applied Spectroscopy and Coblentz Society are trying to help.
At the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez thirty-eight professors now are faced with a halt to their life’s work. Labs are in ruins. Reagents that need refrigeration are useless. The scientific endeavor in Puerto Rico as a whole will suffer. The chemistry department educates an average of 100 chemists per year. This year, those chemists are not going to be trained. That will hurt scientific employers on the island. It is time for our community to act to support our colleagues, and we need your help. Science is a community effort, so we must now come together to solve this problem. That’s why the spectroscopy community, led by the Coblentz Society and the Society for Applied Spectroscopy, is rallying a volunteer effort to support our colleagues. This support can be provided in various forms:
- Through monetary donations we will fund students from Puerto Rico to travel to functioning labs, where access to equipment will help keep those research projects on track. Financial support can be donated at the Society for Applied Spectroscopy Measure Venture site (https://crowdfund.s-a-s.org/projects/spectroscopists-helping-spectroscopists).
- Volunteers can offer their facilities, time, and expertise—including opportunities for Puerto Rican students to come to your lab—at http://www.coblentz.org/Membership/spectroscopists-helping-spectroscopists.
- We are also seeking support from instrument vendors who can donate replacement equipment or donate the time and expertise of staff who can repair or service damaged equipment. Already two companies have donated services to help get this program off the ground. More such donations can be made by contacting helping.spectroscopists@gmail.com.
- We will also facilitate and organize creative solutions to help our colleagues cope with this disaster. If you have ideas, please contact helping.spectroscopists@gmail.com
Teaching our Youth
SAS Member Regan Silvestri
SAS Members Anna Donnell and Gloria Story