In 1941, Velmer A. Fassel, an American chemist who developed the inductively coupled plasma, received a B.A. degree at Southeast Missouri State College. Fassel, as Ames Laboratory deputy director, conducted pioneering work in inductively coupled plasma (ICP) spectroscopy at Iowa State University that led to an analysis tool that’s standard in thousands of laboratories worldwide. Developed in 1966 by Fassel, ICP instruments rapidly determine almost all elements to the parts per trillion level in substances such as oil, blood and soils.