Monday, September 19, 2011, 1:00 pm-1:30 pm

Steven J. Lehotay, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Eastern Regional Research Center, Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, USA

Winner of the 2011 Harvey Wiley Award

The overriding goal of analytical chemistry research has always been and will always be the same: develop and validate approaches to achieve the needed quality of results that fit the purpose of the analysis in the fastest, easiest, safest, most economical, robust, and environmentally friendly way that technology allows. Similarly, the research process to achieve the desired analytical goals should also be as highly effective and efficient as possible. Forming a good partnership is often an excellent way to improve the quality of the research, its outcome and impact, and gain personal satisfaction in the process. Truly, partners in research often exceed the sum of their parts (“partners > parts”).

Members of many organizations often hear the catch-phrases of generating synergy, leveraging resources, and forming multidisciplinary collaborations to enhance the research mission, but independent of the words used, the concepts are much the same and the end results always depend on the people actually doing the work. Research partners must have at least the essential resources and organizational culture to succeed, but they are ultimately responsible for getting the job done as a team. Ideally, the sum of partners entails multiplication, not addition or even subtraction as in some unfortunate cases.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is an organization that traditionally has encouraged and permitted self-generated and natural partnerships among scientists to meet the Agency’s multifaceted mission. Steven Lehotay is the most recent among many Wiley Award recipients from ARS and the sixth from the Eastern Regional Research Center. In each case, the award winning research was achieved in part through partnerships.

In the Wiley Award address, Lehotay will describe the partnerships in his career that have led to several achievements in chemical residue analysis of foods, including the quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe (QuEChERS) sample preparation approach. The formation of partnerships is highly pertinent to AOAC INTERNATIONAL as a volunteer organization which relies on participation and collaborations among scientists. Just as partners must each do their parts to make partnerships work most effectively, the people within an organization as a whole must feel comfortable with its direction and satisfied with their role as an individual to step forward for the organization itself to be more than the sum of its parts. .

Lehotay joined the USDA/ARS in 1992, where he is currently a lead scientist, who serves to develop improved analytical and screening methods for the detection of chemical residues in food. His scientific investigations and method development research have involved improvement in the analysis of pesticides, veterinary drugs, and other contaminants in food and environmental samples. Research has pertained to sample preparation, cleanup, analytical separations, detection, screening, quantification, identification, and data processing using many types of analytical techniques applied in novel ways. .

A Fellow of AOAC INTERNATIONAL (2006), Lehotay has been a member since 1993. He received Study Director of the Year and Collaborative Study of the Year Awards in 2002 (AOAC Official Method^SM 2002.03) and 2007. The method, “Determination of Pesticide Residues in Foods by Acetonitrile Extraction and Partitioning with Magnesium Sulfate (AOAC Official Method^SM 2007.01),” termed QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe), is being used by many pesticide residue-monitoring laboratories worldwide. The study was perhaps one of the most complex collaborative studies conducted under AOAC. Validation entailed the analysis of seven incurred analytes and 20 fortified analytes in three matrixes at three duplicate concentration levels in each matrix. Thirteen laboratories in seven countries participated in the collaborative study. The QuEChERS procedure represents a significant improvement in extraction of a wide variety of pesticide residues from food matrixes. .

Lehotay is an author/co-author of over 100 scientific publications and over 140 meeting abstracts.

He earned both his B.S. and Ph.D. chemistry degrees from the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, USA, in 1987 and 1992, respectively.

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