chemistry

R. Graham Cooks

R. Graham Cooks is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand R. Graham Cooks rather than just read about it. In short: Robert Graham Cooks is the Henry Bohn Hass Distinguished Professor of Chemistry in the Aston Laboratories for Mass Spectrometry at Purdue University. He is an ISI Highly Cited Chemist, with over 1,000 publications and an H-index of 150.

Key takeaways

R. Graham Cooks belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect R. Graham Cooks to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of R. Graham Cooks from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Robert Graham Cooks is the Henry Bohn Hass Distinguished Professor of Chemistry in the Aston Laboratories for Mass Spectrometry at Purdue University. He is an ISI Highly Cited Chemist, with over 1,000 publications and an H-index of 150.

Education Cooks received Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from the University of Natal in South Africa in 1961 and 1963, respectively. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Natal in 1965 and a second Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1967, where he worked with Peter Sykes. He then did post-doctoral work at Cambridge with Dudley Williams.

Career Cooks became an assistant professor at Kansas State University from 1968 to 1971. In 1971, he took a position at Purdue University. He became a professor of chemistry in 1980 and was appointed the Henry Bohn Hass Distinguished Professor in 1990. Cooks was co-editor of the Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry from 2013 to 2017.

Select research interests Research in Cooks' laboratory (the Aston Laboratories) has contributed to a diverse assortment of areas within mass spectrometry, ranging from fundamental research to instrument and method development to applications. Cooks' research interests over the course of his career have included the study of gas-phase ion chemistry, tandem mass spectrometry, angle-resolved mass spectrometry and energy-resolved mass spectrometry (ERMS); dissociation processes, including collision-induced dissociation (CID), surface-induced dissociation (SID), and photodissociation (PD); and desorption processes, including secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), laser desorption ionization (LDI) and desorption electrospray ionization (DESI). His research has ranged through areas from preparative mass spectrometry, ionization techniques and quadrupole ion traps (QITs) and related technologies to as far afield as abiogenisis (also known as "the origin of life") via homochirality.

Awards and fellowships 1984 ACS Analytical Division's Chemical Instrumentation Award; 1985 Thomson Medal for International Service to Mass Spectrometry; 1990 and 1995 NSF Special Creativity Award; 1991 Frank H. Field & Joe Franklin Award, (ACS Award for Mass Spectrometry); 1997 Fisher Award (ACS Award for Analytical Chemistry); 2006 Distinguished Contribution in Mass Spectrometry Award; 2008 Robert Boyle Prize for Analytical Science; 2012 F.A. Cotton Medal for Excellence in Chemical Research of the American Chemical Society; 2013 Dreyfus Prize in the Chemical Sciences; 2014 ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry, shared with graduate student Livia S. Eberlin; 2015 Member, National Academy of Sciences; 2017 Aston Medal, British Mass Spectrometry Society.

See also Desorption electrospray ionization MIKES Orbitrap

References

External links R. Graham Cooks publications indexed by Google Scholar Aston Labs

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with R. Graham Cooks

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what R. Graham Cooks claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to R. Graham Cooks before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about R. Graham Cooks ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of R. Graham Cooks

In research: R. Graham Cooks appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses R. Graham Cooks in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: R. Graham Cooks is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century American chemists, Annual Reviews (publisher) editors, Living people, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for R. Graham Cooks outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study R. Graham Cooks in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what R. Graham Cooks means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain R. Graham Cooks out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is R. Graham Cooks in simple terms?

Why does R. Graham Cooks matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study R. Graham Cooks?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on R. Graham Cooks.