Ray named fellow of Society for Applied Spectroscopy

Steven Ray, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry, has been named a fellow of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy (SAS).

The honor, given to Ray at an awards ceremony at the SciX Conference last month in Raleigh, North Carolina, recognizes individual members for their outstanding achievements in and contributions to science, the profession and the society.

“It is a high honor to be named a fellow of the society, especially because the status of fellow is given in recognition of contributions to both the entire field and the society. Many of the scientists on the list of SAS fellows are people that I greatly admire, and I am humbled to now be included in that company,” Ray says.

Ray has also been named the incoming president of SAS for 2025. The recipient of the society’s 2014 Lester Strock Medal, Ray has served the SAS on its long-range planning, fellow and nomination committees, as well as its applied spectroscopy publication committee. On the local level, Ray served the Niagara Frontier Section of SAS as secretary and president, and is faculty liaison to the SAS student section at UB. 

Ray studies how focused microwave fields can be used to control chemistry and plasma systems. His interests involve novel aspects of analytical chemistry and instrumentation, including atomic spectroscopy, time-of-flight mass spectrometry, distance-of-flight mass spectrometry, ambient mass spectrometry, plasma spectrochemistry and metallomics methodologies. 

He is principal investigator on two projects funded by the National Science Foundation, with a total award amount of nearly $1 million. 

The first involves improving the capabilities of mass spectrometry by using highly focused microwave radiation to enhance and control the formation of charged particles from samples of interest. The second explores the effect of microwave radiation on low-temperature plasmas, designing and developing a set of microwave stripline and microstrip structures adapted specifically to the plasma conditions found within different plasma types. 

As part of its work with the NSF, Ray’s team also distributed 12,500 eclipse glasses to Western New York school districts earlier this year so K-12 students could safely view the region’s total solar eclipse.

The publisher of 95 manuscripts and book chapters, and holder of nine patents, Ray is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.