Dr. Jonathan W. Amy
Jonathan W. Amy grew up in Delaware, Ohio, where his father was head of the English Department at Ohio Wesleyan University. He spent the World War II years in the Mediterranean and the Far East, acquiring a taste for sailing and for electronics. He took a Ph.D. at Purdue University, working on spectroscopy with Walter Edgell in 1955 and stayed to establish and direct the department’s Instrumentation Facility.
Dr. Amy has worked with manufacturers such as Fisher, Aerograph, Varian, Hewlett-Packard, Perkin-Elmer, Galileo, IBM, and Finnigan MAT in perfecting instrumentation. He has made contributions to mass spectrometry, electron spectroscopy, chromatography and nuclear magnetic resonance, which have had real world applications in local fire service, the future direction of scientific research in the United States and much more. He is known as a pioneer in the concept of research support where the skills and perspectives of research scientists, electronic engineers and software specialists are combined to execute cutting edge scientific experiments. Dr. Amy has been recognized by the American Chemical Society through its Chemical Instrumentation Award as well as locally through the George Award for outstanding service to the community.
The Instrumentation Facility was named in late October 1989 to reflect the enormous contribution that Jon Amy has made to the development of modern chemical instrumentation. The Facility's full name is now The Jonathan W. Amy Facility for Chemical Instrumentation.
In 1988, Dr. Amy retired and Dr. Robert E. Santini became the facility's director.