Comment pubs.acs.org/est
The Journey of Ronald A. Hites
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standing and informed decisions on the role of the atmosphere in contaminating the North American Great Lakes. By latest count, his publications on organic contaminants above, in, and near the Great Lakes have exceeded those of all other researchers. Ron was appointed an Associate Editor (AE) of ES&T in 1990, a position he still holds, making him the longest serving AE. In these 25+ years, Ron has handled the review and publication decision on >5000 manuscripts, more than any other editor. It is a rare global scientist that has not had at least one ES&T manuscript handled (and rejected) by Ron! Ron Hites has been recognized for his contributions, receiving many international awards and distinctions including the American Chemical Society’s Award for Creative Advances in Environmental Science and Technology (1991) and the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Founders Award (1993). Ron is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1996), the American Chemical Society (2009), and the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (2014). Ron has been a frequent presenter at the biannual Gordon Conference on Water for the last 40 years. Memorable are his many Thursday Night lectures that combine a unique mix of science and humor, one particularly good example is the “advent of fire” story (see ref 8. Ronald A. Hites: Chemical Comedian by B. Hillery, this issue). His mix of science and humor make him unique in the top levels of the environmental science community. Ron’s longest-lasting contribution is almost certainly his dedication to the teaching and mentoring of several generations of young scientists, many of whom are highly placed in the scientific community and commerce. At last count, Ron has supervised 38 doctoral students and 32 postdoctoral fellows, and he is the scientific grandfather of 100s of academic offspring. We, as Guest Editors, count Ron Hites as a mentor and friend, and we know the research community is bursting with hundreds of others. The interested reader might enjoy an article written by Ron and published in Mass Spectrometry Reviews titled “Reminiscences of a Simple Country Chemist”.9 In this issue, our colleagues have contributed their original manuscripts as a way to show appreciation and respect for Ron. Contributions in this issue of ES&T range from perspectives on Ron’s contributions to environmental mass spectrometry and his ability to make us laugh, to articles on the sources and fates of organic chemicals in the Great Lakes, probing photosensitization with carbon nanotubes, occurrence and toxicity of disinfection byproducts in drinking water, and the oxidation of gas-phase SO2 on the surface of microdroplets. Many of the authors in this issue are Ron’s collaborators and former students. However, a significant number of our authors have never coauthored a publication with Ron and have chosen to
ver the last four decades, Ron Hites has made very significant contributions to the discipline of environmental organic chemistry, notably in the areas of mass spectrometry and the detection, sources, transformations, time trends, and fates of atmospherically derived organic pollutants in rivers and lakes, emphasizing the North American Great Lakes. Just as important is the contribution Ron has made in educating hundreds of young scientists and serving as a longtime Associate Editor of ES&T. This Special Issue of ES&T, titled Four Decades of Advances in Environmental Organic Chemistry, is in honor of Ron’s contributions to the field, and large they are! Ron Hites achieved his early high school and university education in Michigan before heading to the Department of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1964. As a young graduate student, Ron had the luck, and many say foresight, to work with Prof. Klaus Biemann in the area of analytical chemistry. Ron was assigned the task of generating a computerized data acquisition system linked to a Hitachi mass spectrometer interfaced to a small gas chromatograph. As legend has it, this initiated his lifelong dedication to the use of gas chromatographic mass spectrometry (GC-MS) (and computerized data acquisition and analysis) and the publication of several books of mass spectra of environmental organic pollutants. The research community has rightly recognized Ron as the father of modern environmental mass spectrometry.1−3 This recognition was strengthened as Ron taught the Environmental Mass Spectrometry Summer Course at IU from 1979 to 1996. Perhaps two generations of young students and scientists received their GC-MS indoctrination from this experience and enjoyed the experience (including humor) and resulting contacts. Ron’s environmental career took a major leap as a young assistant professor at MIT when he started publishing on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in sediment from the Charles and Merrimac Rivers (e.g., ref 4). In 1979, Ron moved to Indiana University in Bloomington, where he is presently a Distinguished Professor and where he initiated a life-long dedication to the environmental chemistry of problematic organic chemicals in such places as the Love Canal, Siskiwit Lake in Lake Superior, and the Great Lakes in general. Ron’s three most highly cited works describe the occurrence of brominated flame retardants in the environment and people,5 the global distribution of PAHs in recent sediments,6 and the global distribution of organic contaminants in farmed salmon, especially as compared to wild salmon.7 The latter work contributed significantly to the ever ongoing discussions on the “natural vs farmed” fisheries debate. Ron Hites, and his research group, have conducted the United States’ portion of the Great Lakes Integrated Atmospheric Deposition Network (IADN) from 1994 until 2019 for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and, in so doing, established IADN as the world’s leading program of its type. The dozens of publications, mostly in ES&T, from this research activity have provided world-leading scientific under© 2015 American Chemical Society
Special Issue: Ron Hites Tribute Published: December 1, 2015 13737
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5b04944 Environ. Sci. Technol. 2015, 49, 13737−13738
Comment
Environmental Science & Technology publish their original work in this issue of ES&T as an indication of their deep respect for his contributions to the field of environmental organic chemistry over the past four decades (with more to come!). Thank you, Ron! Quite a journey it has been!
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Steven J. Eisenreich Staci L. Massey Simonich
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS. The authors declare no competing financial interest.
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REFERENCES
(1) Hites, R. A.; Biemann, K. MS - computer system particularly suited for GC of complex mixtures. Anal. Chem. 1968, 40, 1217−1221. (2) Hites, R. A.; Biemann, K. Computer evaluation of continuously scanned mass spectra for GC effluents. Anal. Chem. 1970, 42, 855− 860. (3) Hites, R. A.; Hertz, H. S.; Biemann, K. Identification of mass spectra by computer searching a file of known spectra. Anal. Chem. 1971, 43, 681−691. (4) Hites, R. A.; Biemann, K. Water pollution: organic compounds in the Charles River, Boston. Science 1972, 178, 158−160. (5) Hites, R. A. Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers in the Environment and in People: A Meta-Analysis of Concentrations. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2004, 38, 945−956. (6) Laflamme, R. E.; Hites, R. A. The global distribution of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in recent sediments. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 1978, 42, 289−303. (7) Hites, R. A.; Foran, J. A.; Carpenter, D. O.; Hamilton, M. C.; Knuth, B. A.; Schwager, S. J. Global assessment of organic contaminants in farmed salmon. Science 2004, 303, 226−229. (8) Hillery, B.; Hites, R. A. Chemical Comedian. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2015, 150420103736005. (9) Hites, R. A. Reminiscences of a Simple Country Chemist. Mass Spectrom. Rev. 2015, 34, 265−267.
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5b04944 Environ. Sci. Technol. 2015, 49, 13737−13738
