chemistry

Ronald A. Hites

Ronald A. Hites 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 Ronald A. Hites rather than just read about it. In short: Ronald A. Hites (September 19, 1942 – January 5, 2024) was an American environmental chemist and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Indiana University Bloomington who had contributed to 500 scientific papers which generated 27,000 citations and has earned him the title "founding father of environmental mass spectrometry." Early life and education Hites was born in Jackson, Michigan on September 19, 1942.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Ronald A. Hites (September 19, 1942 – January 5, 2024) was an American environmental chemist and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Indiana University Bloomington who had contributed to 500 scientific papers which generated 27,000 citations and has earned him the title "founding father of environmental mass spectrometry."

Early life and education Hites was born in Jackson, Michigan on September 19, 1942. He earned his B.A. degree in chemistry from Oakland University in Michigan in 1964 and then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he earned his Ph. D. in 1968 in organic analytical chemistry while under the supervision of Klaus Biemann. He was on a postdoctoral fellowship at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and then returned to MIT as a staff researcher in 1969.

Career Hites was appointed Assistant Professor at MIT in 1972 and was later promoted to associate professor in 1976. Hites left MIT for Indiana in 1979 where he was given a joint professorial appointment in the Department of Chemistry and in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. He is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and also founded the Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry. Ronald Hites was a Distinguished Professor Emeritus; Director, Hites Laboratory. his expertise included applying organic analytical chemistry techniques to the analysis of trace levels of toxic pollutants, especially polybrominated flame retardants and polychlorinated biphenyls and pesticides. Distinguished Professor Emeritus Ronald Hites was an environmental chemist specializing in the behavior of potentially toxic organic compounds. He had been with O'Neill since 1979, following 15 years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received his doctorate in analytical chemistry. Prof. Hites published six books, nearly 500 scientific papers, and supervised about 90 post-doctoral associates and graduate students. Recent work involved the use of mass spectrometry to analyze trace levels of potentially toxic chemicals in the Great Lakes basin, including discontinued and alternative flame retardants, polychlorinated biphenyls, organochlorine pesticides, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. He also studied the atmospheric transport of these chemicals throughout the environment. Prof. Hites was a Fellow of the American Chemical Society, the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association for Great Lakes Research, the 1993 Founders Award from the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry and the 1991 Award for Creative Advances in Environmental Science and Technology from the American Chemical Society. Between 1990-2018, he was an associate editor of Environmental Science and Technology. In 1988, Hites spearheaded the creation of the Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry while serving as president of that society. The Ron Hites Award is now given annually the best paper in that journal.

Honors and awards Award for Creative Advances in Environmental Science from the American Chemical Society, 1991

Founders Award from the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 1993 American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow, 1996-present American Chemical Society Charter Fellow, 2009-present Lifetime Achievement Award, International Association for Great Lakes Research, 2016 Bicentennial Medal, Indiana University, 2020

Personal life Ronald Hites died on January 5, 2024, at his home in Bloomington, Indiana.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ronald A. Hites

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ronald A. Hites 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 Ronald A. Hites 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 Ronald A. Hites 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 Ronald A. Hites

In research: Ronald A. Hites 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 Ronald A. Hites 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: Ronald A. Hites is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1942 births, 2024 deaths, 21st-century American chemists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ronald A. Hites 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 Ronald A. Hites in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ronald A. Hites 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 Ronald A. Hites out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ronald A. Hites in simple terms?

Why does Ronald A. Hites 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 Ronald A. Hites?

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 Ronald A. Hites.