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. |