Now in his 50th year on the faculty of the Department of Chemistry, Joel Harris will retire from the U on January 1, 2026. Joel arrived at the University of Utah on August 12, 1976, only 4 days after defending his dissertation at Purdue University. He was the first analytical chemist appointed to the faculty and was charged with launching a graduate program in analytical chemistry and developing undergraduate and graduate course offerings in this area. Since that time, analytical chemistry has grown to be a thriving part of the department’s graduate program, with 10 faculty and 21 graduate students who currently affiliate with this area.
Thousands of undergraduate students have now taken analytical chemistry courses that Joel first organized around the principle of integrating fundamental concepts taught in the classroom with practical experiences in lab. This principle was manifested in Joel’s inquiry-based ‘special project’ that was a major part of his semester-long undergraduate course in Quantitative Analysis. This project gave students an opportunity to explore questions of their own asking, using tools of chemical analysis that they learned in the first 8 weeks of the lab. It was a capstone experience of independent learning that was made successful by the individual attention that Joel provided each student as they encountered problems in lab. Joel offered a similar approach to his graduate-level teaching, where students learned the theory of modern data analysis methods in the classroom and applied these concepts in consultation with Joel to data from their dissertation research.
Joel launched a research program in analytical laser spectroscopy at the U with a modest start-up budget of $25,000. He and his first students pioneered photothermal spectroscopy, a sensitive method for detecting molecules that absorb laser radiation by measuring the increase in the sample temperature. Time-resolved photothermal measurements reported non-radiative decay rates of electronically excited states, while pulsed-laser Raman spectroscopy was employed to determine the structure of photochemical intermediates. Another major research goal in Joel’s lab was to determine the composition and structure of molecules at liquid/solid interfaces, where a small population of molecules residing at an interface must be resolved from the host of molecules in the surrounding solution. To address this challenge, Joel and his students developed surface-selective Raman, infrared, and fluorescence spectroscopy methods to investigate chemistry at liquid/solid interfaces. The sensitivity of their fluorescence methods increased to the point where they could quantify molecular populations by counting molecules and record movies of individual molecules undergoing reversible chemical reactions at surfaces.
Joel has won numerous national, international, and University honors for his research, teaching, and professional service. The true legacy of his career, however, is found in the success and outstanding contributions that his undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs have made in their lives and careers, following their time in his classroom and research lab.
Joel Harris' Bio:
Joel M. Harris is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Utah. Harris earned a B.S. from Duke University in 1972 with Charles Lochmüller and his Ph.D. from Purdue University with Fred Lytle in 1976. He joined the faculty of the University of Utah straight out of graduate school and was the first faculty member in analytical chemistry hired by the Department of Chemistry. Harris rose through the faculty ranks and was appointed Distinguished Professor in the year 2000. He also held an Adjunct Faculty appointment in the Department of Bioengineering from 1980 to 2019.
Harris’s research focused on analytical chemistry and spectroscopic studies of low concentrations of molecules in liquids and at liquid-solid interfaces. He and his students advanced new concepts in photothermal spectroscopy, methods to analyze multidimensional spectroscopic data, Raman spectroscopy of transient species and interfaces, and quantitative analysis of interfacial molecular populations by imaging and counting individual fluorescent molecules. They applied these methods to investigate the kinetics and energetics of excited-states and reactive-intermediates, and molecular transport, adsorption, and binding kinetics that govern separations and analysis at liquid-solid interfaces.
Harris is Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Fellow of the American Chemical Society. He is also Fellow and Honorary Member of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy. For 12 years, Harris served as Editor-in-Chief of Applied Spectroscopy. He is the recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the Coblentz Award in Molecular Spectroscopy, the University of Utah Distinguished Research Award, and the ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry Award in Chemical Instrumentation, their Award in Spectrochemical Analysis, and their Roland Hirsch Award for Distinguished Service. Harris was honored with the SAS New York Section Gold Medal Award in Spectroscopy, the Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry Award, the University of Utah Robert W. Parry Teaching Award, the University of Utah Distinguished Teaching Award, and the University of Utah Calvin and JeNeal Hatch Prize for Teaching, the Distinguished Service Award of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy, the Benedetti-Pichler Award in Microchemistry, the Bomem-Michelson Award of the Coblentz Society, the Fields Award of the Eastern Analytical Symposium, the Utah Governor’s Medal in Science and Technology, and the ACS Award in Analytical Chemistry.