AB Vista specialist triumphs in international NIR competition

AB Vista’s Senior R&D Applications Specialist Ali Gahkani has been awarded first prize in The Council for Near-Infrared Spectroscopy’s global NIR data analysis competition, hosted at the recent International Diffuse Reflectance Conference (IDRC) in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

Open to all conference attendees, the biennial competition takes the form of a ‘data analysis shootout’. Having received a complex dataset in advance of the conference, participants are required to analyse the data and build a model for presentation to the judging panel.

Dr Gahkani, who develops NIR calibrations and applications for AB Vista’s NIR services, explains that this year’s dataset broke new ground, by exploring one of the emerging areas of NIR spectroscopy:

“The competition this year was based around the field of aquaphotomics – which involves examining water-light interaction across the whole electromagnetic spectrum. Our challenge as participants involved analysing the differences in the spectrum of water, in order to draw conclusions about the components dissolved in it.”

Dr Gahkani’s novel methodology – which was presented at the conference by his colleague Simon Flanagan – is believed to be a first for the industry, having never previously been used in conjunction with aquaphotomic data.  

A former Purdue University postdoctoral researcher, Dr Gahkani next month celebrates his tenth year of working with commercial NIR. He recently contributed to AB Vista’s guide to NIR, which explores key areas relating to NIR technology.