Thomas Rizzo

Expertise Physical and Bioanalytical Chemistry Tom Rizzo was born in New York and studied chemistry at Rensselaer Polytechnique Institute from 1974-1978, where he graduated cum laude. He then moved to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he pursued his PhD in physical chemistry under the direction of F. Fleming Crim. From 1983-1986 he did postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Donald Levy at the University of Chicago.In 1986, he accepted a position of tenure-track Assistant Professor at the University of Rochester, where he rose up through the ranks to Associate Professor with tenure in 1992 and then Full Professor in 1993. In 1994, he was appointed Professor of Physical Chemistry and Chair of the Laboratory of Molecular Physical Chemistry at the EPFL, where he worked until his retirement in September of 2023.Over the last 20 years, his research has focused on combining laser spectroscopy, ion mobility and mass spectrometry for the study of cryogenically cooled bimolecular ions. His most recent work is using these techniques to develop new analytical approaches to determine the structure of glycans.During his time at EPFL, Prof. Rizzo has served as the Head of the Department of Chemistry (1997-2004) and the Dean of the School of Basic Sciences (2004-2017). He has also served as an ERC panel member and Chair.He has received a number of awards and honors, including a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Distinguished New Faculty Award (1986), an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (1991), the Coblentz Society Award for Molecular Spectroscopy (1992), the University of Rochester Student Association Teacher of the Year Award (1992), the APLE prize for best EPFL invention (1999), the Bourke Award of the Faraday Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2009), the Ron Hites Award from the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (2017), and the ACS Measurement Science Award (2022). He has been named Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (1993), the American Physical Society (1998), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2011).Tom has been retired from EPFL since September 2023.  He currently serves as co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of a start-up called Isospec Analytics SA (https://www.isospecanalytics.com/), whose aim is to develop and apply advanced spectroscopic techniques for biomarker discovery.Laboratory website http://lcpm.epfl.chRESEARCH INTERESTS: Experimental physical and bio analytical chemistry Teaching & PhD Past EPFL PhD Students Bernd Kuhn, Monika Kowalczyk, Joachim Makowe, Julia Rebstein Mutti, Santiago Rueda Armada, Mathieu Schmid, Patrice Theulé, Mikhaïl Polianski, Richard Bossart, Anthi Kamariotou, Michael Maurin, Sébastien Mercier, Pavlo Maksyutenko, Monia Guidi, Caroline Seaiby, Ulrich Lorenz, Georgios Papadopoulos, Oleg Aseev, Aleksandra Zabuga, Liudmila Voronina, Chiara Masellis, Valeriu Scutelnic, Ahmed Ben Faleh, Robert Paul Pellegrinelli, Natalia Yalovenko, Priyanka Bansal, Irina Märki, Ali H Abikhodr Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Markus Schneider Awards Camille and Henry Dreyfus Distinguished New Faculty Award 1986 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow 1991 Coblentz Society Award 1992 Student Association Teacher of the Year Award 1992 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellow 1993 APLE prize for best EPFL invention 1999 Bourke Award, Faraday Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry 2009 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2011 Fellow of the American Physical Society 1998 Ron Hites Award, American Society for Mass Spectrometry 2017 Schrödinger Medal, Symposium on Atomic and Surface Physics 2018 EPFL Section of Chemistry Best teacher award 2021 ACS Advances in Measurement Science Lectureship Award 2022 Advances in Measurement Science Lectureship Award American Chemical Society 2022