NASA dedicated an area of Mars to a late Pitt professor

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.

For many researchers, however, Asher will always be known for his research into imaging small molecules using UV resonance Raman spectroscopy. Traditional Raman spectroscopy is an imaging technology that analyzes chemicals by shining light and probing the light that bounces back. Asher’s research led to a more sensitive version of this technology that resulted in less background noise and the ability to perform more accurate analyses.

“His research program rapidly became a pillar of our strengths in analytical and physical chemistry,” Saxena told the Times. 

Naming an area of Mars after Asher hints at the breadth of his experience, particularly his work to develop the technology needed to fully realize the potential of UV resonance Raman Spectroscopy, according to the Society for Applied Spectroscopy. When NASA began considering the use of such a spectrometer on the Mars Perseverance rover, the agency asked him to join the team. There, he worked on developing spectroscopy applications that were eventually used on the rover’s SHERLOC instrument.

Top photo by Tom Altany