Sanford Abraham Asher — a Pitt professor who was a pioneer of one of science’s mainstay imaging technologies until his death in January — was honored by NASA, who officially named a region of Mars after the chemistry innovator.
Ultraviolet (UV) resonance Raman spectroscopy has been used to better understand life in proteins and viruses, and beyond to microimaging within semiconductors. Ultimately, his work became integral to the search for signs of life on Mars. Now, in a gesture reflective of Asher’s outsized contributions to science, the planet’s Sandford Abraham Asher Memorial Workspace will be referred to as such in future scientific papers.
Asher joined Pitt in 1980 and remained a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Chemistry in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences until he died at age 78. He published more than 330 papers across several fields during his career, but his contributions to research weren’t reserved to academic journals. Sunil K. Saxena, a fellow professor of chemistry in the Dietrich School, told the University Times Asher had trained at least 47 PhD students and 65 postdoctoral fellows and visiting scientists.
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