In memoriam of Dr. Karl Norris.

Contribution from Ana Garrido-Varo

         I had several wonderful opportunities to get very close to Karl Norris  I think that I saw Karl for the first time during my attendance at the ICNIR Conference held in Brussels (1990) or maybe Aberdeen in 1991? By that time I had studied his revolutionary paper Predicting Forage Quality by Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (Norris, et al., 1976) co-authored with Barnes, Moore and Shenk. That paper opened a big door to an exciting scientific career for many animal nutritionists, such as myself.

           I had several wonderful opportunities to get very close to Karl Norris  I think that I saw Karl for the first time during my attendance at the ICNIR Conference held in Brussels (1990) or maybe Aberdeen in 1991? By that time I had studied his revolutionary paper Predicting Forage Quality by Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (Norris, et al., 1976) co-authored with Barnes, Moore and Shenk. That paper opened a big door to an exciting scientific career for many animal nutritionists, such as myself.

During the same period, I devoured the best piece of NIR educational literature ever written, the book entitled Near-Infrared Technology in the Agricultural and Food Industries, co-edited by Phil Williams and Karl Norris. I have several favorite chapters from that book, but the collection of spectra contained at the end of the book has always been of a great help. I never imagined that years later, Karl would personally send me this collection of spectra as a donation to our educational project IVPTL-NIRS . The collection is also available at the ICNIRS website for society members. I kept seeing Karl at every conference, but I would never have dared to talk to him to ask questions.

I always saw him as being very busy and I thought that it was not in order to disturb such an important person. I also remember one of the Conferences (maybe in Haugesund, Norway?) that when we were at the gala dinner, somebody asked for silence and we could hear a phone message from Karl. I remember that I was very impressed and moved, and I realized once more, that Karl was a fundamental part of the NIR community. I was emotionally touched by hearing his telephone message in the sepulchral sound of the dining room. No video only voice! I greatly admired his intellectual and human qualities.

I have had the privilege of being close to him on several occasions, which I will illustrate with some short comments and photographs.

 Córdoba, April 2003 (NIR2003).

I had the great pleasure of having him as a guest at our ICNIRS Conference in 2003. This gave my students the opportunity to learn directly from him . We took the opportunity to interview him in depth, for the largest Spanish daily newspaper.

Beltsville , Maryland ( USA), March 2007

During a research visit to the Instrumentation & Sensing Laboratory, ISL, USDA-ARS, Belstville, I asked Moon Kim to let Karl know that I would be there for one month. The day after, Karl went to ISL to meet me. He told me that that was the first time he was at ISL since his retirement. I think he enjoyed that day. I took a picture of him in the front of a photo of him taken in the late 60´s, with President Eisenhower attending a demo of Karl’s machine for Automatic Detection of Blood In Eggs. 

I had an incredible experience that day!! He took me on a one-day round trip to Port Matilda, because he knew that I would have liked to take the advantage of my visit to the USA, to meet John Shenk. He drove in heavy snow. Maxine, his wife, scolded him because he drove so fast! During the trip he confessed to me that it was the first time that he had visited John's house. It is a pity that the photo I took of the two giants with part of the families is a bit dark. 

Fatty acids in Iberian pig ham

Karl and his interest about determination of fatty acids on humans ( 2011- 2012) One of my scientific talks with Karl while I was visiting ISL was related to our interest and need, in Spain, of measuring fatty acids in live Iberian pigs ( IP). I knew that he had a paper published (Conway, Norris and Bodwell, 1984), to estimate body composition of humans. I enjoyed very much learning from him how the distance between the source and detector affected depth of penetration into the body. He showed a great interest in our research on Iberian pig ham and fatty acids by NIR.

During the summer time of 2011 we returned to the exchange of info about IP adipose tissue. I suggested to him that he could work with our data for preparing a Lecture (Spectral examination and mathematical pre-treatments), for the first course offered by the IVPTL-NIR. I think that he liked that invitation to act as a teacher, and although he resisted initially, he finally accepted with great interest. We decided that he would do some work for the Lecture using our IP NIR data sets. During the next few months we exchanged files and many interesting thoughts. One day he sent to me an e-mail.  The e-mail said “I wish to follow up on the possible detection of body fatty acids by NIR transmission on the ear. I attempted to get your spectra from the fatty acids from the web but I could not access them. I would like to know your wavelengths for measuring the fatty acids, to see if I can find such bands in my ear spectra"   We sent him several files and after working with them he wrote: "I believe that an interactance probe would be able to detect fat spectra and give information about the feed. A transmittance measurement could work if we could find a spot where the sample is thin enough, less than 5 mm. I am very impressed with your data".

Unfortunately a few months after that, Karl started to have problems with his memory and he told me that some days he was not able to find files in the computer. I wish to share with the NIR community that comment through this document. I am very proud of the value he gave to our IP work and very grateful that he decided to share this innovative idea with me in such an altruistic way. Hopefully one day that idea will become a reality. He deserves it.

Chambersburg , August 2014

Finally, I had the great privilege of presenting Karl with the Inaugural ICNIRS Karl Norris Medal.

Karl, thanks for everything, with love and deep gratitude, Ana.