Richard N. Zare

Meet Richard N. Zare

Raising the field’s profile… Emphasize that measurement is at the heart of all experimental work, that what we regard as truth is based on observation, and that a measurement with no estimate of its uncertainty does not constitute an acceptable measurement. Analytical chemistry is about chemical measurement, and in that sense so many more researchers are doing analytical chemistry than is commonly appreciated. 

The decade’s most important development? I think it will turn out to be the importance of machine learning in aiding chemical analysis, although I do not believe that this point of view is widely appreciated at this time.

Biggest challenge? Simply put, gaining more respect for analytical science’s importance to understanding nature.