Valerie Winkler, a graduate student in the Fournier Lab, is one of three recipients of the 2025 Rao Prizes awarded at the International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy (ISMS) for her talk, "Investigating Photoinitiated Intramolecular Cyclization Using Transient Infrared Spectroscopy." Valerie was selected for the prize from a pool of over 400 speakers.
This recognition highlights her innovative contributions to the field of spectroscopy, positioning her among the notable scholars in this interdisciplinary field. Valerie's talk highlighted her recent research efforts that utilized time-resolved spectroscopy methods developed in the Fournier Lab to probe the reaction dynamics and kinetics within complex organic molecules initiated by the absorption of light. She was able to reveal the complex, four-step process involved in the self-cyclization of a ring-chain compound, 4-(1,3-dithiolan-2-ylidene)1,7-diphenyl-1,6-heptadiene-3,5-dione, into a bicyclic ring, bicyclo[3.2.0]heptane-2,4-dione, within just 500 picoseconds.
The Rao Prize was established by a group of spectroscopists who, as graduate students, benefited from the emphasis on graduate student participation —a unique characteristic of the Symposium. ISMS encompasses a wide range of topics, from theory to experiment, from gas-phase to condensed-phase, from low resolution to ultra-high resolution across the electromagnetic spectrum, and from fundamental science to applications such as astronomy and atmospheric science. Each year's meeting also features three "mini-symposia" dedicated to special interest topics.
