“Every living organism runs on chemistry, and metabolomics is the attempt to read that chemistry directly by measuring thousands of small molecules at once: in a drop of blood, a leaf, a microbial colony, and even a single cell,” Fernández says. 

Advances in understanding metabolites could provide new insights for cancer diagnostics, drug development, and environmental monitoring.

“The Metabolomics Society’s members are pushing the field forward and translating metabolomics knowledge into real health benefits for society,” he adds. “Being selected by that group of scientists and students feels like a special kind of honor.”

Fernández joined Georgia Tech in 2004 and also serves as the Vasser-Woolley Chair in Bioanalytical Chemistry in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. His research focuses on developing tools to measure and analyze small-volume samples, tissues, and single cells. He also directs the Systems Mass Spectrometry Core at the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience. 

His two-year term on the Metabolomics Society's Board of Directors begins Oct. 1.