ISC 2024: An Interview with Caitlin Cain

During the 34th International Symposium on Chromatography, which takes place from October 6–10, 2024 in Liverpool, UK, various scientists are honored for their contributions to the analytical chemistry community. This year, LCGC International was honored to present Caitlin Cain of the University of Michigan with our Rising Stars of Separation Science Award for Gas Chromatography, sponsored by Organomation.

Caitlin Cain began her academic journey at Virginia Commonwealth University, where she received her B.S. in Chemistry and Forensic Science in 2019. She then pursued her Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Washington, completing her dissertation under the supervision of Robert Synovec in 2024. Her doctoral research centered on developing innovative non-targeted data analysis techniques to enhance analyte discovery for both gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-MS (GC×GC-MS) platforms. During this time, she co-authored more than 20 journal publications and book chapters, with 14 as the first author, showcasing her contributions to the field.

Cain's research accomplishments have been recognized by multiple prestigious awards, including the Rising Stars in Analytical Chemistry at the 2024 American Chemical Society Fall National Meeting and the JEOL – Richard D. Sacks Student Award at the 20th International GC×GC Symposium. She has also received accolades from the Chinese American Chromatography Association and a Multidimensional GC Poster Award at the 12th Multidimensional Chromatography Workshop, underscoring her impact and promise as a leading scientist in analytical chemistry.

As part of our conference coverage, we sat down with Cain to learn more about her background and what drives her interest in analytical chemistry.

In this interview, we asked the following questions:

• Congratulations on winning the Rising Stars of Separation Science Award for Gas Chromatography! When did you first encounter chromatography?
• Can you tell us more about your PhD thesis?
• Who has inspired you during your career?
• Your work has focused on developing and improving non-targeted chemometric approaches to analyze both one-dimensional and comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS and GC×GC-MS) data. What is novel about your research in this area and what were your main findings?
• What applications have you focused on?
• What are you working on now?

For more details about Cain's award, click here. To see more interviews from ISC 2024, check out our recent interviews with Amarande Murisier, Alexandre Goyon, and Bram Huygens.