Eigenvector President Wise Receives Wold Medal

Eigenvector Reseach President and PLS_Toolbox creator Dr. Barry M. Wise was recognized for his achievements in the field of chemometrics* at the 16th Scandinavian Symposium on Chemometrics (SSC16) in Oslo, Norway. Wise received the Herman Wold Medal in gold “For his pioneering contributions in Process Chemometrics and his extensive, deep commitment to the proliferation of Chemometrics.” The award is sponsored by the Chemometrics Division of the Swedish Chemical Society and was presented by previous Wold medal winner Dr. Johan Trygg of Sartorius, AG.

Dr. Wise is the first American and the first non-academic to receive the Wold medal.

Wise gladly accepted the award and thanked the award committee and his fellow Eigenvectorians past and present for their support. He also acknowledged his good fortune and gratitude for guidance provided by his graduate advisor in Chemical Engineering Prof. N. Lawrence (Larry) Ricker and Prof. Bruce R. Kowalski in Chemistry.

The text presented at the award ceremony is included below.

Motivation for Barry M. Wise

Dr. Wise has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from University of Washington, Seattle, USA and has been active in chemometrics since 1985. His research has focused largely on chemometrics in chemical process analysis, monitoring and control. E.g. he demonstrated PCA and PLS for monitoring systems to detect process upsets and failed sensors and introduced the term MSPC (multivariate statistical process control). His scientific contribution with 99 publications (H=33) cited 3700 times is impressive for a non-academic. 

To proliferate and cultivate Chemometrics, scientists and engineers must be made aware of the benefits of the methods, have access to the methods and educated on the proper use. Barry has successfully achieved all three goals. Dr. Wise has through Eigenvector Research, Inc., using PLS_Toolbox/Solo taught thousands of students how to apply chemometrics, from basic methods like PCA and PLS to advanced non-linear methods like ANNs and SVMs. There are thousands of chemometrics users, from novices to experts, who have been impacted by the efforts of Barry Wise. These people span myriad industries from semiconductor, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, manufacturing, medical devices, agriculture, food and beverage and automotive areas. 

Barry has also received numerous awards and honorary recognitions including Chemometrics award at Eastern Analytical Symposium (EAS, 2001) and Chair of GRC on Statistics in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (1995), and CAC-2002. 

Barry has dedicated 30 years to the chemometric community and is a true role model for students and scientists in sharing knowledge and through polite and logical argumentation in scientific discussion. 

In conclusion, we find that Barry Wise is a most worthy receiver of the Herman Wold gold medal of 2019. 

*Chemometrics is the chemical discipline that uses mathematical, statistical, and other methods employing formal logic to design or select optimal measurement procedures and experiments, and to provide maximum relevant chemical information by analyzing chemical data.