MEDIA CONTACT: Megan Fellman at (847) 491-3115 or fellman@northwestern.edu

November 25, 2003

Odom Receives Packard Fellowship

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Teri W. Odom, assistant professor of chemistry at Northwestern University, has been awarded a Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

The young researcher, along with 15 others from universities across the country, will receive a five-year unrestricted research grant of $625,000.

Every year, the foundation invites presidents of 50 selected universities to nominate two young professors doing innovative research in the natural sciences or engineering.

Odom’s research focuses on uncovering new electronic and optical phenomena at the nanoscale (1 to 10 nanometers) and mesoscale (100 to 1,000 namometers). Her interests include the synthesis and characterization of organic and inorganic nanoscale materials, the development of methods to manipulate nanostructures into functional assemblies and the generation of mesostructures that exhibit novel optical behavior.

With the Packard funding, Odom and her research group plan to investigate unique approaches to enhance the optical and vibrational properties of small molecules using localized electromagnetic fields. The manipulation of light into patterns on surfaces will be facilitated by the construction of well-defined, micron-sized structures made from semiconducting nanocrystals. The properties of small molecules can be enhanced from both the localized electric fields and the emission characteristics of the nanocrystals. The design of patterned surfaces -- with control over the size of the structures and chemistry of the nanocrystals -- has great potential for important studies of fluorescence from single molecules and surface-enhanced fluorescence and vibrations.

Odom received her Ph.D. in chemical physics from Harvard University in 2001. She then was a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow at Harvard before joining the Northwestern faculty in 2002.

The Packard Fellowship Program, established in 1988, is among the nation’s largest nongovernmental programs designed to seek out and reward the pursuit of scientific discovery with “no strings attached” support.