History

The Lake Arrowhead Conference on Ion Chemistry and Mass Spectrometry began some 53 years ago as annual joint group meetings initiated by Jack Beauchamp (Caltech), Mike Bowers (UC Santa Barbara), Bob McIver (UC Irvine) and Bob Taft (UC Irvine). These meetings grew in popularity making it desirable to choose a slightly more formal venue. Since 1981, the meetings have been held at the UCLA Conference Center at Lake Arrowhead California. Clear skies, fresh air, wild flowers and 40 acres of pine forests surround the meeting site. The conference center is located beside beautiful Lake Arrowhead, tucked in the San Bernardino Mountains north of Riverside, California. The facilities at the conference center are comfortable; the food is very good and plentiful.

In 2024, the conference name was changed to The Lake Arrowhead Conference on Mass Spectrometry to better represent the growing, continuously evolving and broader aspects of mass spectrometry (and somehwat lesser focus on ion chemistry) reflected in the meeting content.

Since its inception, the meeting has focused on providing an excellent forum for presentations by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.  However, talks from acknowledged world experts in mass spectrometry are a regular part of the meeting (see Saturday Evening Talks below).

Because the topic of the meeting is focused, the audience is knowledgeable and lively. The cozy size of the meeting (generally ranging between 50 to 85 participants) promotes extensive interactions between participants.

Conference Logo

When Carlito Lebrilla served as the organizer of The Lake Arrowhead Conference on Ion Chemistry and Mass Spectrometry he developed the first conference logo. This original logo connected the local scenery of the UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference center with an ion chemistry / mass spectrometry theme. The original logo was based on the harpoon reaction first proposed by Michael Polanyi in 1920, which describes the redox reaction between two neutral species that undergo electron transfer over a relatively long distance when an electron jumps from one of the reactants to the other, e.g., K(g) + X(g) → K⁺(g) + X^-(g), that subsequently exhibit a greater attraction to each other. Unlike like most chemical reactions, harpoon reactions exhibit cross sections greater than the purely geometrical cross sections calculated based on their radii. This logo remained the conference logo until 2008, when Mary Rodgers decided to liven it up with color while maintaining the historical context. The conference logo was again updated by Mary Rodgers in 2023 to reflect the change in the name of the conference to The Lake Arrowhead Conference on Mass Spectrometry.

Saturday Evening Talks

2024 “Radicals are More Fun”, František (Frank) Tureček of the University of Washington

   

2023 “Celebrating 50⁺ Years of the Lake Arrowhead Conference on Ion Chemistry and Mass Spectrometry”

   

2022 “How Stumbling and Kicking Over Stones Could lead to a Decent Career in Mass Spectrometry” Joseph A. Loo of the University of California, Los Angeles

   

2021 Meeting cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic

2020 “Atomic Ions to Intact Protein Complexes: 25 Years of IM-MS Development for Ion Structure, Dynamics and Thermodynamics” David H. Russell of Texas A & M University

   

2019 “The Convoluted Path to Structures for Lossless Ion Manipulations” Richard D. Smith of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

2018 "ITS A TRAP: Three Decades of Interrogating Multiply-Charged Molecular Detainees" Scott. A McLuckey of Purdue University

2017 "Once Upon Anion: A Tale of Photodetachment" W. Carl Lineberger of the Universith of Colorado, Boulder

2016 “My Adventures in the Spectroscopy of Gas-Phase Biological Molecules: From a Cool Reception to a Hot Topic” Thomas R. Rizzo of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

2015 “Adventures in Ion Chemistry: My First 44 Years” Veronica M. Bierbaum, University of Colorado, Boulder

  

2014 " Colorful Colonials: Australian Adventures, Eccentrics, Rogues, Showmen, and Pioneers" Richard A. J. O’Hair, University of Melbourne

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2013 "2130 Bond Energies and Counting" Peter B. Armentrout, University of Utah

  

2012 "Zapping Ions for Fun and Profit: Reflections on 40 Years of Research " John R. Eyler, University of Florida

2011 "Anti-Matter to Proteins: 30 Years Meandering Through the Wonderland of Mass Spectrometry Instrumentation" Gary L. Glish, University of North Carolina

2010 "Adventures and Misadventures in Mass Spectrometry" Catherine E. Costello, Boston University School of Medicine

2009 - "Symposium and Celebration in Honor of MIchael T. Bowers on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday!"

2008 - “Holy Grails in Gas-Phase Ion Chemistry: Are There Any?” Helmut Schwarz, Technical University of Berlin

 

2007 - “A Positively Charged Life in Ion Chemistry” - Terrance B. McMahon, University of Waterloo

2006 - A Short History of the Universe (of Ion Chemistry and Mass Spectrometry) - Jean H. Futrell, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

2005 Meeting cancelled due to flooding and landslides in the Lake Arrowhead region

2004 - Mass Spectrometers: Economics, Sociology, & Science of the Machine - Graham R. Cooks, Purdue University

2003 - Symposium and Celebration in Honor of Jack Beauchamp on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday - Jack's Students, Friends and Colleagues

2002 - Ions Meet Photons. Early Days of ICR Photodissociation - Robert C. Dunbar, Case Western Reserve University

2001 - Has Mike Gross Ever Done Any Ion Chemistry? - Michael L. Gross, Washington University

2000 - Symposium and Celebration of the Career and Life of Robert R. Squires - Bob's Students, Friends and Colleagues

1999 - Going with the Flow - Chuck DePuy, University of Colorado

1998 - A Personal Perspective on the Development of Guided Ion Beam Chemistry - Peter Armentrout, University of Utah

1997 - Biological Directions for FT-ICR Mass Spectrometry - Alan Marshall, Florida State University

1996 - Title? - Bob McIver, UC Irvine

1995 - Tandem High-Resolution MS of Multiply-Charged Proteins - Fred McLafferty, Cornell University

1994 - A Historical Perspective of FTMS - Charles Wilkins, UC Riverside

1993 - A slightly Irreverent History of ICR - Jack Beauchamp, Caltech

1992 - No speaker scheduled

1991 -  Hear no talks. Speak no talks. See no posters. Have no fun!

1990 - Everything You Always Wanted to Know About . . . and Its Early Practitioners, But Were Afraid to Ask - John Brauman, Stanford University

1989 - Reflections on the Development of Mass Spectrometry - Dudley Williams

1988 - No speaker indicated

1986 – The Comet is Coming! The Comet is Coming! – Wesley T. Huntress, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

1985 – Gas-Phase Ion Chemistry: A Revolutionary Two Decades – Robert W. Taft, University of California, Irvine

1984 – History of Ion-Molecule Reactions Studied by Tandem Mass Spectrometry – Jean H. Futrell, University of Utah

1983 – History of Ion-Molecule Reactions Studied by High Pressure Mass Spectrometry – Paul Kebarle, University of Alberta

1982 – History of the Flowing Afterglow – Eldon Ferguson, Environmental Research Laboratories, Boulder, CO

1981 – History of ICR – John D. Baldeschwieler, California Institute of Technology

Future Meeting Dates