R Graham Cooks

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Graham Cooks was born in South Africa and received a Ph. D. at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg and also from Cambridge University, UK. He is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Purdue University where he has spent the bulk of his career. His interests involve construction of mass spectrometers as well as their use in fundamental studies and applications. Early in his career, he contributed to the concept and implementation of MS/MS as a method of mixture analysis and to desorption ionization, especially matrix based SIMS methods. These interests led more recently to the construction of miniature ion trap mass spectrometers and their application to problems of trace chemical agent detection. His work on ionization methods has led to the ambient method of desorption electrospray ionization. Applications of this method in tissue monitoring, forensics and in pharmaceutical applications are in hand. He is also interested in molecular chirality ("handedness") and the possible role of the amino acid serine in the biochemical origins of life. Graham Cooks is a past President of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry and is on the boards of a number of scientific journals. He has been honored by awards from the American Chemical Society and other organizations and his work is highly cited (one of the 100 most-cited chemists). He has trained 98 Ph. D. students in analytical chemistry.