Carnegie Mellon University

Logan Plath operating mass spectrometer

June 08, 2018

Logan Plath Wins Travel Award to Attend Annual ASMS Conference

By Ben Panko

Chemistry Ph.D. candidate Logan Plath received the American Society for Mass Spectrometry Graduate Student Travel Award to attend the society's 66th annual Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics. At the conference this week in San Diego, Plath will be presenting a poster titled "Next Generation Superconducting Tunnel Junction Cryodetection for Heavy Ion Mass Spectrometry." The award provides up to $1,000 to cover conference travel costs as well as free registration.

Plath works in the research group of Chemistry Research Professor Mark Bier, who also serves as director of Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Molecular Analysis. In Bier's lab, Plath primarily works on studying large macromolecules, such as viruses, polymers and protein complexes through mass spectrometry. These large macromolecules typically move far too slow inside mass spectrometers to be detected by conventional technology, so Plath uses superconducting tunnel junctions that are supercooled.

"By studying large macromolecules we may learn new information with the ability to characterize larger and more heterogeneous systems," Plath said.