Honoring Mentors: An Interview with Vilmos Kertesz

Every year at the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) conference, awards are presented to honor veteran and newcomer researchers making notable contributions in the field of mass spectrometry (MS). One such award is the Al Yergey MS Scientist Award. The award is named in honor of Al Yergey, who served 45 years at the National Institutes of Health and was known as a dedicated mentor. This award recognizes dedication and significant contributions to MS-based science by “unsung heroes” (1). This year, one of the award winners was Vilmos Kertesz of Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Vilmos Kertesz is a senior researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (2). He received his master’s degree and PhD from Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary. He has more than 25 years of experience in analytical chemistry, specifically focusing on MS fundamentals, instrumentation, and applications. His major research interests focus on MS-based chemical profiling and imaging techniques for chemically characterizing surfaces, high-throughput MS analyses, and single-cell metabolomics.

“We are inventing the next generation of analysis tools that will advance these areas,” he said (2).

Recently, we sat down with Kertesz to learn about his storied career and how he got to where he is now. In the penultimate section of our interview with Kertesz, he reflects on his mentors and how they guided him throughout his scientific career.

Please stay tuned for the final section of our time with Kertesz!

References

(1) Al Yergey MS Scientist Award. American Society for Mass Spectrometry 2025. https://www.asms.org/about-asms-awards/al-yergey-outstanding-ms-scientist (accessed 2025-4-25)

(2) Vilmos Kertesz. Oak Ridge National Laboratory 2025. https://www.ornl.gov/staff-profile/vilmos-kertesz (accessed 2025-4-29)