When talking about FA meetings and FIA, one person stands out, namely Dr. Alison McDonald from the University of Birmingham, UK, who for more than a quarter of a decade was the Editor-in-Chief of Analytica Chimica Acta, and hence was instrumental in securing the publication of the proceedings of the FA meetings for the journal. Being that very person that "pushed" Jarda and me to write the first book on FIA [3], she was also one of the two organizers of FA III in Birmingham; and at the following meeting in Las Vegas she was most appropriately elected "Flow Injection Queen" for her enthusiasm for promoting FIA.
It is evident from the scientific FIA literature - which at this juncture (summer 2013) contains more than 21200 entries - that many of the names that appear in Table 1 and Table 2 as organizers of the FA meetings and the ICFIA/JAFIA conferences also are some of the most ardent researchers and prolific writers. Many of them have received national and international honors for their accomplishments over the years, including Jarda and me. In this context I should like to mention that the most touching moment that comes to my mind is when Jarda received the Gold Medal from his old Alma Mater, Charles University in Prague in the Czech Republic, in 1999. Having been relegated earlier by the communists for leaving the country to take residence in Denmark and becoming a naturalized citizen, he was on that day in late June not only welcomed back to his university, but it was with honors and distinctions. Gary Christian and I were fortunate to receive awards at the same occasion. The same held true a year later when the three of us received The Warsaw University Medal at FAVIII in that city.
One of the highlights for me during the recent FA meetings and ICFIA/JAFIA conferences has been to observe the keen interest from young people to apply FIA and its sequels (sequential injection and lab-on-valve) for new and novel applications. Thus, I am confident that the concept of FIA will survive - at least for some years to come - and I am actually in awe to see what they have to offer. And I am secretly proud to have contributed to have brought this concept into existence. At the FA conference in Thessaloniki in 2012 it was discussed to merge the FA-conferences and the ICFIA/JAFIA meetings. Not the least because of the tighter economic situation that all our nations face, but primarily because the meetings, after all, to a large extent are addressing the very same audience. Unfortunately, no final conclusion was arrived at, but it is to be expected that it will be considered seriously at the ICFIA meeting in 2013 in Porto, Portugal.
Click here to find some photos from recent FA and ICFIA/JAFIA meetings. I sure hope that it brings back a lot of happy memories!
References:
[1] Gary D. Christian, A historical account of conferences devoted to flow methods in analytical chemistry - International Conference on Flow Analysis (FA) and International Conference on Flow Injection Analysis. (ICFIA). Analytica Chimica Acta, 652 (2009) 234-238
[2] Gary D. Christian, Flow analysis and its role and importance in the analytical sciences. Analytica Chimica Acta, 499 (2003) 5-8
[3] Jaromir Ruzicka and Elo H. Hansen, "Flow Injection Analysis". John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, USA, 1981 [2nd edition published in 1988].
5.5.2.
