Pittcon Heritage Award

Instrumentation dramatically transformed the power, pace, and impact of scientific research. New questions could be asked and answered. Research that once took years could be done in days. The Pittcon Heritage Award honors those visionaries whose entrepreneurial careers shaped the instrumentation and laboratory supplies community and by doing so have transformed the scientific community at large.

The award has been presented jointly with Pittcon since 2002 and is given out each year at a special ceremony during the Pittcon Conference and Expo. The recipient’s name and achievements are added to the Pittcon Hall of Fame, which conference attendees can visit at the show each year. This year’s award was presented at the conference on March 19, 2023, in Philadelphia.

2023 Awardee: Fasha Mahjoor

Fasha Mahjoor is an architect, entrepreneur, visionary, and philanthropist who designs cultures of innovation that lead his scientific companies down the paths of transformative and explosive success.

Mahjoor was the founder and CEO of Phenomenex and CEO of Phenova and InventX, with subsidiaries in 16 countries and 75 distributors and partners around the world. With no background in chemistry, he nevertheless built leading companies in the chromatography world through laser focus, attention to detail, tenacity, enthusiasm, and sheer persistence, as well as research and development in manufacturing, and delivering products and customer service to the highest standard of quality.

In 2016, after 34 years at the helm, he made another big change: he sold his companies to Danaher Corporation and founded Farrona, LLC and Neoteryx, LLC, a company focused on the microsampling of biological fluids, particularly blood. Once again, his vision has created precise maps that allow scientific innovators to conquer new territory. In December 2021 Mahjoor sold Neoteryx to Trajan Scientific, a public company based in Australia.

Success confirms the power of Mahjoor’s appreciation for elegant design, calculated risk, and simple concepts that can lead to significant improvements—when combined with his endless energy, relentless pursuit of excellence, appetite for long hours and seven-day work weeks, and complete and dedicated focus and attention to whatever he takes on.

Mahjoor was a member of the board of directors for the American Red Cross (Los Angeles), a board member of PharmaFluidics (Belgium), a member of the board of trustees for the Outward Bound Trust (U.K.), and an honorary patron of the Royal Grammar School (U.K.). In 2013 he was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, one of the most prestigious awards in the United States, placing his name in the Library of Congress alongside U.S. presidents and Nobel Prize winners. He was also recognized in 2013 by The Analytical Scientist, which featured him on its list of the 100 most influential people in the field of analytical sciences. In 2022 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of science by Manchester Metropolitan University for his “contribution to analytical sciences and support for a wide range of charitable causes.”

Previous Winners of the Pittcon Heritage Award

• Klaus-Peter Hupe (2021)
• Stan Stearns (2020)
• Nicholas Pelick and Walter Supina (2019)
• Michael Morris (2018)
• Robert Warren (2017)
• Kenji Kazato and Kazuo Ito (2016)
• Blaine Bowman (2015)
• Lynwood Swanson (2014)
• Günther Laukien (2013)
• Genzo Shimadzu Sr. and Genzo Shimadzu Jr. (2012)
• George and John Hatsopoulos and Arvin Smith (2011)
• Walter Jennings (2010)
• Alfred Bader (2009)
• Leroy Hood (2008)
• David Schwartz (2007)
• Masao Horiba (2006)
• Robert W. Allington (2005)
• Paul A. Wilks Jr. (2004)
• Kathryn Hach-Darrow (2003)
• David Nelson (2002)

Pittcon Hall of Fame Inductees

All winners of the Pittcon Heritage Award are inducted into the Pittcon Hall of Fame. There they join the members of the special introductory class of instrumentation pioneers:

• Walter S. Baird
• John Townsend Baker
• C. Eugene Bennett and Aaron Martin
• Arnold O. Beckman
• Howard Cary
• Wallace Coulter
• Keene P. Dimick
• Charles Elmer and Richard S. Perkin
• Robert E. Finnigan
• Chester G. Fisher
• Maurice Hasler
• William Hewlett and David Packard
• J. O. Jarrell
• Frank Martinez Jr.
• Erhard Mettler
• Arthur H. Thomas
• Russell Varian and Sigurd Varian

The Science History Institute thanks the American Chemical Society, which granted permission to adapt the biographical information for these web pages, and Declan O’Reilly, former Charles Price Fellow in Polymer Chemistry at the Institute, for his contributions.

The Institute gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation for this undertaking and thanks the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy for giving us the opportunity to be a partner in maintaining the Pittcon Hall of Fame.
 

About Pittcon

Pittcon is the largest and most inclusive conference and exposition on laboratory science and instrumentation in the world. The annual event brings together more than 30,000 conferees and exhibitors from more than 70 countries.