The Coblentz Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Katherine Antolin Bakeev of GlaxoSmithKline Plc is to receive the 2007 Craver Award in Applied Vibrational Spectroscopy. In 2006, The Coblentz Society created this award to recognize young professional spectroscopists that have made significant contributions in applied vibrational spectroscopy. The award is named for Clara D. Craver in recognition of her pioneering efforts in promoting the practice of infrared vibrational spectroscopy and her many years of service to the Coblentz Society. The Coblentz Society is a non-profit organization founded in 1954 with the purpose of fostering the understanding and application of vibrational spectroscopy. This inaugural Craver award is presented to Dr. Bakeev in recognition of her efforts in, and promotion of, near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy and chemometrics to create greater sophistication in process analytical methods and to obtain improved process understanding.

The Craver Award was presented by Mary Carrabba, Coblentz Society president, at the 2007 FACSS Conference held October 14–18th in Memphis, TN. Dr. Bakeev presented the Coblentz Society’s Craver Award Plenary Lecture in Applied Vibrational Spectroscopy on Wednesday, October 17th. Her talk was entitled “Increased process understanding through use of in-situ vibrational spectroscopy”. Additionally, a separate half-day award symposium of six invited presentations was held following her lecture at this conference. The speakers included Prof. Roumiana Tsenkova of Kobe University, Nancy Jestel of Sabic Innovative Plastics, Bill Muller of Foss NIRSystems, David Himmelsbach of the USDA Russel Research Center, Prof. Fred McClure (emeritus) of NC State University, and Prof. Fotios Papadimitrakopoulos of the University of Connecticut.

Dr. Katherine A. Bakeev currently works with GlaxoSmithKline in King of Prussia, PA. There she is part of the Process Analytical Technology and Chemometrics group within Strategic Technologies, using spectroscopic tools for increased process understanding, and integrating their use within the development group and transferring them to manufacturing. The scope of her work includes developing methods for process analysis from lab to manufacturing scale. She was previously a product specialist with Foss NIRSystems, Silver Spring, MD. In that role she supported applications of NIR for the pharmaceutical and chemical markets on the Eastern US. She also did work in process analytical technology while working for International Specialty Products, Wayne, NJ from 1995-2000. Her industrial career started with AMP Incorporated (now Tyco Electronics) in Harrisburg, PA. While still a student she did internships with 3M in St. Paul, MN and for Dow Chemical Company- working on synthetic polymer chemistry research in the laboratory of Prof. Virgil Percec at Case Western Reserve University.

Her education is in polymer science and engineering with a BS from Case Western Reserve University (1987) and PhD from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (1993). Her graduate research under the direction of Prof. Shaw Ling Hsu was in studying polymorphic transitions of ferroelectric copolymers using vibrational spectroscopy, thermal analysis and X-ray analysis. Before starting her graduate studies she was the recipient of a Rotary Foundation Scholarship which allowed her to spend a year in the laboratory of Prof. Paul Rempp at the Institut Charles Sadron in Strasbourg, France where she worked on polymer synthesis and characterization. She also holds a Masters in Technology Management from Stevens Institute of Technology (2001).

Over the years Katherine has published several papers and presented numerous presentations on the use of NIR. She has taught a course on Process Analytical Spectroscopy at the Eastern Analytical Symposium (EAS) and at the International Diffuse Reflectance Conference (IDRC, commonly known as the “Chambersburg” conference). She is the editor of the best-selling book Process Analytical Technology: Spectroscopic tools and implementation strategies for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

Katherine is the current president of the Council for Near Infrared Spectroscopy and a member of the Coblentz Society, the Society for Applied Spectroscopy and the American Chemical Society. She also actively participates in ASTM committees on Pharmaceutical Applications of PAT, and E13 for Molecular Spectroscopy and Separation Science.

She is the daughter of Ivanka Velikonja Antolin and the late Viktor Antolin. She is the 12th of 13 children, and spent her childhood in Fairfield, PA. Her elementary education was at the Mother Seton School in Emmitsburg, MD. She graduated from Delone Catholic High School in 1983. She and her husband, Dr. Kirill N. Bakeev, live in Newark, DE where they enjoy ballroom dancing, gardening, and being amongst their friends.