Dajana Vuckovic Receives EAS Young Investigator Award

The Eastern Analytical Symposium (EAS) 2020 Young Investigator will be presented to Dajana Vuckovic on Monday, November 16. Vuckovic is scheduled to deliver a talk on “New Advances in Lipidomics and Mycotoxin Analysis.”

Dajana Vuckovic, Concordia University

Vuckovic is an associate professor and research chair in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Concordia University, in Montreal, Canada. She also serves as the director of Concordia’s Center for Biological Applications of Mass Spectrometry.

She received her Honors BS in chemistry from the University of Toronto in 2002 followed by three years as a research and development analytical chemist in the pharmaceutical industry. She completed her PhD in analytical chemistry in 2010 at the University of Waterloo under the supervision of Professor Janusz Pawliszyn. After postdoctoral training in chemical and quantitative proteomics with Professor Andrew Emili at the Donnelly Centre of the University of Toronto, she joined Concordia University in 2012.

Her current research interests include sequential-extraction methods, new extraction materials, in vivo solid-phase microextraction, hormone peptide assays, metabolite identification using high-resolution mass spectrometry, and the fundamentals of electrospray ionization. The Vuckovic group develops new analytical methods and devices to improve metabolite coverage and data quality in metabolomics and lipidomics. This includes improving the detection of low-abundance and unstable metabolites, with the over-reaching goal of discovering and validating biomarkers to facilitate personalized medicine ionization.

She has published 43 peer-reviewed papers and 11 book chapters to date. Vuckovic is the recipient of the 2019 Young Investigator Award by the Canadian Society of Mass Spectrometry, the 2019 CNC–IUPAC Travel Award by Canadian National Committee for the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, the 2018 Dean’s Excellence in Scholarship Award, and the 2014 Petro Canada Young Innovator Award.

Her research was featured in the 2018 Chemical Communications Emerging Investigator issue, placing her among the top early-career investigators. Vuckovic serves on the editorial board of Bioanalysis and is an active member of the international Metabolomics Quality Assurance and Quality Control Consortium (mQACC), whose objective is to establish and disseminate best practices and standard reference materials for untargeted metabolomics.