“How to Fingerprint (Raman) Almost Any Material” IAP Workshop by Dr. Lamyaa Almehmadi

Last week, IBK Fellow Dr. Lamyaa Almehmadi held an exciting and truly unique IAP workshop: "How to Fingerprint (Raman) Almost Any Material'. This title cleverly referencing one of MIT's most iconic courses, "How to Make (Almost) Anything" offered within the Media Arts and Sciences Department.

This workshop offered students a 30-minute hands-on introduction to Raman spectroscopy fundamentals, along with real-world examples across different materials. Students were even encouraged to bring their own (non-hazardous) materials to this workshop to explore, such as chocolate or coffee! To briefly summarize, Raman spectroscopy is a non-destructive, label-free chemical analysis technique that identifies and characterizes materials by measuring non-elastic scattered light.

Dr. Almehmadi chose to focus on the practical side of Raman: what works, what fails, and how to extract reliable fingerprints using handheld instruments. The success of this event is evident, and we hope to see more of its kind from Dr. Almehmadi and other members of the IBK community!