May 2012
Volume 4, Number 8
FEATURES
Core Facility Is a Research Magnet
Core Facility Is a Research
Magnet
1
PEOPLE
Linda Hicke to Leave Northwestern
2
Olvera de la Cruz Elected to National Academy of Sciences
5
Sauls Receives Prestigious Bardeen Prize
5
Greenland Passing the Reins of NUCATS Institute
6
NEWS
Grand Challenges Explorations Grants for Global Health 3
NIH Requires Grant Acknowledgements 3
National Program for Materials Innovation Launched
4
Northwestern Researchers on New HBO Series
4
Honors & Awards
6
Faculty Research Around Campus
7
Research in the News: April 18 - May 15
7
Spring CenterPiece Now Online
8
Catalyst Committee to Lead Strategic Planning Efforts
7
Proposal and Award Reports through March 2012
10
Earthquake Measured in Locy Hall
10
EVENTS
Research Expo Expands to Include Art
8
Research Administration Training Seminar
9
Science Café to Focus on Understanding ‘Slums’
9
Buffett Lecture in International Studies
9
Northwestern Research
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Hard disks, such as those in the hard drive of a computer, record data on a thin
magnetic coating. Photo source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hard_disk.jpg
Magnets. They affix coupons and photos to our refrigerators. They
encode digital information onto compact discs. And they guide the
particles that whirl around the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
Things that display the physical property of magnetism are studied
at Northwestern’s Magnet and Low Temperature Facility on the
Evanston campus.
“Anybody who wants to measure something in a high-magnetic
field can to come to this facility,” says John Ketterson, physics and
astronomy, and director of the core. “We can measure temperature
dependence of magnetization, electric response, and resistance to
electrical current transport, and other things that depend on the
magnetic field strength.”
A part of Northwestern’s Materials Research Center, the core
facility’s history stretches back to 1959 when the University
purchased the largest electromagnet that was commercially
available at the time. The electromagnet was a centerpiece of the
facility until a stronger magnet was acquired shortly after the
recent renovation of the Technological Institute where the core
facility is housed.
The electromagnet is held inside a copper-screened room to keep
out electromagnetic inferences, such as those emitted by the
University’s radio station WNUR and cell phone transmissions,
from disturbing sensitive measurements.
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Northwestern Research Newsletter May 2012
Page 2
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The facility eventually gained a second electromagnet that is
able to measure high-frequency magnetic responses.
Reseachers studying a wide range of subjects, including
materials science, physics, and chemistry, use the Magnet and
Low Temperature Facility. In addition to having two powerful
electromagnets, the core also has cryogenic systems to measure
magnetization in temperatures from 1.9 Kelvin to 390 Kelvin.
The types of measurements that are routinely performed
are magnetization and magnetic susceptibility, acoustic
propagation, microwave absorption, and electrical transport.
“The magnetism itself is a property that changes with
temperature,” says Ketterson, who uses the facility to make
magnetic measurements of a nanostructured material formed
from permalloy. “If you have a magnet in your hand and you
heat it, you will eventually reach a magic temperature. And
boom! The magnetization disappears.”
This phenomenon is known as a phase transition and is widely
studied in solid-state physics. A goal of many of the researchers
is to find out how the tiny atomic magnets within some
materials order themselves and why that order disappears
above a certain temperature.
According to Ketterson, the instruments in the facility are
very easy to use as all of the machinery is computer controlled.
After loading a sample, researchers simply dial up the
temperatures and magnetic fields on a computer. The computer
runs the experiment and outputs the data. Facility technician
Oleksandr Chernyashevskyy trains users to run their own
experiments with the machinery.
The systems are designed to be as flexible as possible. When
they require upgrades or new functions, Ketterson and
Chernyashevskyy do it themselves, tailoring the equipment to
the needs of the researchers.
“Much of the science we do can’t be done with things you buy
off the shelf,” Ketterson says. “We figure out what folks want to
measure and build machinery to measure it.”
The Magnet and Low Temperature Facility is located on the
first and ground levels of the Technological Institute.
For more information visit http://www.mrsec.northwestern.
edu/content/facilities/magnetlowtemp.htm.
Linda Hicke to Leave Northwestern
Linda Hicke, associate vice president
for research, is leaving Northwestern to
become dean of the College of Natural
Sciences at the University of Texas at
Austin. She will start this new position
on July 15, 2012.
Fund New Investigator Award in the
Basic Pharmacological Sciences.
Wanting to impart the love for
science to students, Hicke served as
principal investigator and director of
the Northwestern Ventures in Biology
Education (nuViBE) program funded by
the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Under the auspices of nuViBE, Hicke
developed the BioEXCEL summer
bridge program, the NU Bioscientist
freshman research program, and she
led the restructuring of Northwestern’s
introductory biology courses.
As associate vice president for research,
Hicke managed a full portfolio,
including the Office for Sponsored
Research, Office for Research
Development, Center for Comparative
Medicine, core facilities, and seven
University research centers.
Hicke told the University of Texas
alumni magazine that science has been
ingrained into her psyche for as long as
she can remember. This love for science
led her to study chemistry during her
undergraduate career at Humboldt State
University in California and pursue a
PhD in biochemistry at the University
of California at Berkeley.
Hicke devoted the last 16 years
to Northwestern as a professor of
molecular biosciences, leading a
research laboratory investigating the
regulation of protein location within
Linda Hicke
Photograph by Rick Gaber
cells. She also taught introductory and
upper-level cell biology courses and
received multiple awards, including a
Searle Scholars Award, the Presidential
Early Career Award for Scientists and
Engineers, and a Burroughs Wellcome
Now she will bring her love of science
to UT-Austin, leading one of the
largest colleges at the university with
nine departments and schools and
38 research units. Her appointment
includes a tenured faculty position
as professor of molecular genetics
and microbiology. She will also hold
the Robert E. Boyer Chair in Natural
Sciences.
Read Jay Walsh’s announcement about
Hicke’s departure here.