A Northwestern chemistry professor has won the prestigious Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, joining the long list of professors in her department whose research has been recognized this year.
Prof. Teri L. Odom is one of 15 researchers across the country this year to receive a fellowship from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Odom will receive an unrestricted $625,000 grant over the next five years.
Nominations for the award come from the presidents of 50 elite universities selected by the foundation. Each president names two young scientists who are doing innovative research. Fifteen nominees receive a grant.
Although Odom said she was surprised to receive the award, she did have a hint that it was coming — in the form of a dream.
“I had a dream … that there was an announcement in the newspaper and I had to look under all these little leaves on the page,” Odom said. “I had to lift up each one to figure out what it said.”
Odom didn’t find out about her achievement in a newspaper, though, but in a small envelope.
“Small envelopes generally aren’t good news,” Odom said. “I had to read it 10 times to make sure it said what I thought it said. It makes you feel really small when you read about these things you don’t think you deserve.”
But Kevin Koy, director of external relations for the chemistry department, said Odom and her work definitely deserve recognition.
Odom’s research in nanotechnology concerns optical and electronic effects at a scale of one-millionth of a meter or smaller. She is trying to understand how certain molecules assemble themselves and recreate similar effects with new materials in the lab.
Kevin Koy said Odom’s research represents the forefront of nanoscience, but may not yield immediate applications or profits. Grants like the Packard Fellowship play an essential role in promoting such fundamental research, he said.
“As I understand it, nobody made any money on DNA, but it changed the way we think about the world,” Koy said. “I think there are two different approaches in science. One says, ‘Give me a problem and let me see if I can solve it.’ Another is interested for understanding’s sake. When people cracked the double helix structure of DNA … they didn’t know exactly what problem they were solving. They were investigating.”
Odom said she appreciates how the Packard Foundation honors work that may not be used in a new technology right away.
“You can propose crazy ideas because they want to fund risky propositions — but propositions that might have a big payoff,” Odom said.
She said eventually her work could be incorporated into building very small light sources and tiny transistors, but such development would be out of her hands — it would allow others to do more work.
“Without a fundamental understanding of new behaviors you can’t really make reliable devices,” Odom said.
The Packard Fellowship is the latest in a bevy of honors bestowed on NU’s chemistry department. In October biochemistry Prof. Amy Rosenzweig won a MacArthur “genius” grant of $500,000. Prof. John Pople, who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1998, recently was knighted by the Queen of England.
Koy said NU’s strong chemistry department should provide Odom with fertile ground for her future research.
“She’s out there investigating, looking for that four-leaf clover,” he said. “If she finds it, she may be a Nobel prize-winner.”
