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Hayes honored for top achievements


Mark Hayes
March 13, 2013

The American Microchemical Society will honor Mark Hayes, ASU associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, with the Benedetti-Pichler Award in recognition of his major contributions to the development of new technology for analyzing ultra small volumes of biological fluids and tissues.

The award recognizes outstanding research in the field of microchemistry as well as administration, teaching and other activities that promote and advance microchemistry. The award will be presented at the Eastern Analytical Symposium and Exhibition in November of this year in Somerset, N.J.

Hayes’s academic career has produced significant results across several disciplines within the analytical and physical chemistry community that includes aspects of engineering, physics, biology and medicine. While contributing to the knowledge base, Mark has energetically and creatively supported the wider profession at local, regional, national and international levels.

“It is an honor to be included in an impressive line of BP Award winners that stretches over four decades,” said Hayes. “I am humbled to be added to any list that includes the likes of Walter C. McCrone (father of modern scientific microscopy), George H. Morrison (a giant in the field and past editor of Analytical Chemistry), Jonathan V. Sweedler (current editor of Analytical Chemistry) and my own research advisor Andrew G. Ewing (Marie Currie Chair, Chalmers University and University of Gothenburg, Sweden). While our group has worked quietly and diligently, it is great to see that our work has been noted and is respected.”

Hayes earned his undergraduate degree at Humboldt State University, in Calif., and then initially worked in private industry at a "mom & pop" analytical laboratory, and at J&W Scientific capillary gas chromatography column manufacturer (now part of Agilent). He then entered graduate school at Penn State University and studied under professor Andrew G. Ewing, developing electroosmotic flow control mechanisms. Postdoctoral studies were with professor Werner Kuhr at the University of California, Riverside and focused on attaching enzymes directly to electrochemical probes to transduce non-electroactive targets to species, which can be sensed via electron transfer.

Hayes has contributed to several different research areas, ranging from creating bionanotubules from liposomes in electric fields, to establishing a framework for vastly improved microscale array-based separations, reported in more than seventy publications and book chapters. He has served on review panels for NIH, NSF, DOE, RSC, NAS, DOJ, GRE, DARPA, private industry, local (Mayo Clinic), and Romanian & Czech scientific and has served as peer reviewer to at least twenty-five journals, including Analytical Chemistry, The Journal of the American Chemical Society, Nature, Langmuir and The Proceedings of the Royal Society. He was recently elected President (starting in 2013) of AES (Electrophoresis Society) and recently was named to the editorial board of Electrophoresis and was a finalist for the FACSS Innovation Award. He has mentored fifty undergraduate and graduate students, producing thirteen doctorates while supporting them with research funds and prestigious fellowships from NSF, ACS, Fulbright, Kirkbright, FLAS and local awards.