STEM Pathways - NYAS

Winners of the Junior Academy Innovation Challenge Fall 2022: “The Green Redesign”

Published December 1, 2022

By Nicole Pope

Challenges in Agriculture

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has identified lack of innovation as one of the biggest challenges in agriculture. In a world facing multiple challenges such as depleted natural resources, climate change, and pollution, developing more efficient agricultural systems is crucial for our survival.

Through online brainstorming, the team concluded that emerging technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can address some of these issues and can help farmers who often lack the skill set to optimize agricultural methods. Overuse of fertilizer, for example, can pollute waterways, burn crops, deplete the soil of minerals and increase air pollution.

“It was an amazing experience to have connected with like-minded individuals and research world-changing approaches!” says Riya.

Greetopia team members decided to develop a web application that would tackle the excessive use of non-renewable resources.

“I got to research and learn more about the important crises around the world, such as concrete pollution, irrigation, etc.,” says Arshroop. “The constant communication within the team allowed us to keep up with the information and learn a lot of valuable lessons through the program.”

Utilizing the Internet of Things

In particular, the students opted to use the Internet of Things (IoT) to increase efficiency in irrigation and modernize farming practices that have remained unchanged for centuries.

“As team lead, I worked on planning our work, informing each member of what they have to do until certain target dates, creating documents to make the process efficient, and of course, conducting research about our research topic and filling in the milestones,” explains Team Lead Jiho.

The team devised “Kanad”, a farming application that delivers four main functions. First, it senses soil moisture levels by using a machine-learning component called Long Short-Term Memory Network (LSTM), which gets more accurate with use. Second, farmers can enter information on the Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium (NPK) content in the soil, (also analyzed by sensors) to identify the most optimally adapting crops for these soil characteristics and locations.

Utilizing Machine-Learning

Machine-learning can also recommend the optimal amount of fertilizer based on the same NPK levels in the field. Finally, farmers can enter images of their crop into the web-based application, which will use the Convolutional Neural Network deep learning system to identify potential crop diseases with an accuracy of 95.25%.

Arriving at this successful solution did not prove easy: the team decided to change direction halfway through the Challenge.

“I’m glad that the team members understood the sudden change in our projected target in the middle of the program, which led to a successful ending,” says Ansh. In the end, perseverance paid off and the outcome amply justified the effort involved.

“Despite the obstacles we encountered, we made it till the end,” says Rawnaq. “We did not just complete the challenge but the result was awesome.”

[1] Source: UN Food and Agriculture Organisation
[2] Source: US Department of Agriculture
[3] Source: World Wildlife Fund (WWF-UK)

An Innovative Approach to Predicting Forest Fires

Winners of the Junior Academy Innovation Challenge Fall 2022: “Forestry for a Sustainable Future”

Published December 1, 2022

By Nicole Pope

Sponsored by Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA)

Prolonged droughts, caused by climate change, have amplified the risks of forest fires around the globe– making blazes bigger, more frequent, and more intense.

These fires devastate vast swathes of forests and often spread into residential areas, threatening lives and housing. Research by the University of Maryland suggests that fires cause forests to lose 3 million more hectares annually than in 2001. Furthermore, the UN Environment Program estimates that by 2100, the number of forest fires will increase by 50%.

The team Intelligent Forest — Chinmay R. (India, Team Lead), Rohan S. (India), and Soumik P. (India) — worked under the guidance of their mentor Malarvizhi Arulraj (United States) to tackle this critical issue as part of the “Forestry for a Sustainable Future” Fall 2022 Junior Academy Challenge, sponsored by the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA). Intelligent Forest bested the field among 175 competitors. Their innovative method to predict the risk of fire helped them to win.

“It was great taking on real world problems and using our intellect to solve them. I learned various things throughout the course of the challenge such as AI, weather patterns, machine learning applications and much more,” says Rohan. “We worked hard as a team and came up with a solution in the end together.”

Understanding Forest Fires

Forest fires can be triggered by natural factors, such as lightning, or by human factors, such as the careless dropping of a cigarette or the lighting of an unnecessary fire in severe drought conditions. Crown fires burn the entire length of the trees while surface fires only scorch dried leaves and grass.

In some cases, fire can rage under the ground. As the team discovered over the course of their research, climatic conditions play a critical role– the hotter and drier the weather, the more destructive the fire is likely to be.

Finding ways to mitigate the impact of these now-frequent infernos required hard work, but the team members worked collaboratively to achieve results.

“There were times when I was uncertain as to whether we would even reach the end, but here we are,” says Soumik. “It was a fun experience working with my team members, and I had the opportunity to add and develop my skills. My main contribution was helping with the research side of things and suggesting ideas and edits.”

Utilizing Artificial Intelligence

With support from their mentor, the students decided to focus on harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyze forest and temperature data, in the hope that it would be possible to predict the risk of fires.

“I was impressed by the plans and ideas the team put together and was absolutely delighted to mentor the team,” says their mentor, Malarvizhi. “They chose a problem and approach that was hard and challenging. Especially, finding the best dataset and creating working machine-learning algorithms needs a lot of effort.”

Using data on fire alerts and meteorological information (minimal and maximal temperatures, rainfall, solar radiation and daily evaporation) collected in the Brisbane area in Australia between 2012 and 2022, the team tested two different AI approaches: Decision Tree and Random Forest.

The Results

The goal was to create four categories: no risk, low risk, medium risk or high risk of fire. The results provided the proof-of-concept the team expected. With the Decision Tree approach, they were able to predict fire risk with 70% accuracy, while the accuracy was 79% using the Random Forest approach.

These findings demonstrated that with the help of AI, it is possible to predict the risk of forest fires with 70–80% accuracy, which, in turn, allows for increased preparedness and limited impact.

“The project was a great learning experience for me,” says Team Lead Chinmay. “I had taken Artificial Intelligence as a subject in high school and this project taught me how I could apply what I had learned in a real-life situation.”

Work-Life Balance is Key in the Hybrid Environment

A man poses with his toddler daughter while holding a newborn baby.

Daniel Brandenburg, the 2022 Blavatnik Regional Awards Finalist in Physical Sciences & Engineering, offers tips on how to find a healthy work-life balance in the new age of hybrid work.

Published September 21, 2022

By Daniel Brandenburg

For many of us, COVID ushered in an era of working from home. I was traveling for a scientific conference when Brookhaven National Laboratory first sent all employees home to work. It was an eerie experience returning from a trip and just never going back to my office. At first, I loved working from home, since every extra minute with my wife and two young daughters is a gift. As I tried to balance everything, I quickly realized that working from home is a double-edged sword. As much as I loved being seconds away from my family, I really benefit from a “work” routine—of getting out of the house and going to the office.

The change in external environment naturally helped change my internal focus, shifting it onto my research and work. Then, at the end of the day when I left my office, the change in environment helped my to-do list slip out of my mind. Working from home removed that routine overnight along with the environment switching that I relied on to kick-start my morning focus and my winding down each day. At first, I didn’t even have a home office, since we lived in a small apartment. So, I worked wherever I could find some peace and quiet. But when you train yourself to focus on work at your dinner table or in your living room, it is hard to ever forget about work in your own home.

If left unchecked, that turns into an unhealthy cycle: work, eat, sleep, work.

And that is not a good routine for life or for long-term quality and productivity. Whenever I catch myself getting too overwhelmed with my research or falling into a bad routine, my family is what helps me find balance. That help comes primarily in two ways:

1) Balance is hard work. My family gives me something outside of work I truly care about enough to invest the hard work needed to find balance.

2) They expect me to succeed in finding balance, and they celebrate with me when I do.

I think number one is easy to overlook. Anything that requires hard work needs to be compelled by something you value, otherwise it can be hard to stay motivated. Most scientists genuinely enjoy their research, so what is the harm in another hour or two? Having a daughter that is eagerly awaiting my free time puts that into sharp focus and gives me a reason to put healthy boundaries on my time. I enjoy physics and most of my daily work, so it’s even more important for me to recognize and remember that time spent on work, is time not spent on something else that’s important and good.

But number two is at least as important for me. “Balance” isn’t something that happens once; it is a process and a pattern with ups and downs at different periods. And academia is a competitive field. Even more, I work in a large scientific collaboration with over 700 members from across the globe—there’s really no concept of a nine-to-five. So sometimes I work a long day or, if a major conference is coming, maybe a long couple of weeks. Those are the times when it is easiest for it to become normal, to slip into an unhealthy work routine. But my family doesn’t operate on deadlines, so they are expecting me to make time for them every day, regardless of the day or week. And when I do, they are happier, and I am too. This expectation for successful balance is a kind of restorative force, preventing me from ever getting too unhealthy. I am glad for that kind of positive pressure in my life.

So, practically speaking, I try to focus 100 percent on work when I am working. I set up my environment to remove distractions and unrelated interests. This lets me feel accomplished and honest with my time at the end of the day. Then, once the workday is done, I try to plan quality time with my family. For instance, my daughter and I have been making use of the hot summer to go kayaking together. She is still small enough to sit in my lap in a single kayak. We often spend hours together talking, exploring, and looking for fish. Even the more mundane parts of daily life can be planned for a better outcome. I acquired a love of cooking from my father, so often I’ll try to make dinner with my wife or daughter’s help. Since my older daughter is only three-and-a-half years old, I must find creative ways for her to help. Sometimes that means giving her an extra bowl and her own ingredients to mix. Sometimes it means making a mess—that’s my wife’s favorite 😉

These kinds of activities are my favorite because they engage my mind, they help me relax, and they often provide teachable moments for my daughters.

This piece was originally published on the National Postdoctoral Association member blog as part of 2022 National Postdoc Appreciation Week. Current Academy Members can receive a 20% discount on a National Postdoctoral Association postdoc individual membership by emailing info@nyas.org and requesting the NPA membership discount code

Learn more about the 2022 Blavatnik Regional Awards for Young Scientists

About the Author

Daniel Brandenburg is a Finalist in Physical Sciences & Engineering for the 2022 Blavatnik Regional Awards for Young Scientists. You can learn more about him and the Blavatnik Awards at Blavatnikawards.org

Meeting Electricity Needs in the Philippines

A shot of planet Earth taken from space.

Winners of the Junior Academy Innovation Challenge Spring 2022: “Flexible Use of Electricity”

Published July 1, 2022

By Roger Torda

Team Members: Abhi G. (Team Lead) (India), Marianne I. (Philippines), Shreya J. (Canada), Angel I. (Philippines), Elijah U. (Nigeria)

Mentor: Muhammad Mahad Malik (Pakistan)

For this Junior Academy challenge on Flexible Use of Electricity, the five Power On team members chose to address a thorny issue: the energy deficit in the Philippines, where electricity demand is growing rapidly, and supply falls short of demand– leaving close to 30% of the population without electricity or facing significant fluctuations in electricity supply known as brownouts. Constraints on access to power are especially acute in rural areas and on the country’s numerous islands.

“The flexible electricity challenge is one of the most complex research projects I’ve ever worked on as it took quite a while for me to decipher the exact problems that needed to be tackled,” explains Elijah. “However, this pushed me to engage more in extensive readings, and actively be a part of reaching out to and interviewing numerous experts.”

After conducting a survey in nine countries, consulting their mentor and experts, and brainstorming through the Academy’s Launchpad platform, the team members narrowed down potential solutions to focus on three approaches.

“Asking questions and making sure that we understood the concepts fueled me to keep on collecting more knowledge,” says Marianne. “Interviewing different experts from different fields gave us new perspectives when we dealt with this challenge. Because a problem has deep roots, it is important to look at it from different angles.”

Raising Public Awareness

First, based on the results of their survey, the students determined it was important to raise public awareness of electricity issues such as peaks/non-peaks, flexible use of electricity, and supply, storage and distribution. They’ve addressed this need for awareness with an entertaining game designed to educate consumers.

“I had to meet experts from around the globe to hear their perspectives on flexible electricity,” explains Angel. “It made me realize that people may have different geographies and have various living standards, but what we have in common is that we face similar problems, such as balancing the demand and supply of electricity.”

The second pillar of the students’ project is Demaflex, an app to forecast demand and improve the response. The app would analyze data to predict times of high demand and encourage consumers to reduce the pressure on the power grid by scheduling their use of various appliances (such as dishwashers or washing machines) during off-peak periods. By sending recommendations to power users, the app would promote flexible use of electricity.

Finally, the team focused on developing Electrade, an app-based, decentralized, user-friendly energy trading platform that would allow people to buy energy and sell excess electricity back to the grid. The enterprising students will be working with the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and the Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development (PCIEERD), which have created a partnership program to grant startup funding towards commercializing their solutions.

An Eye-Opening Experience

Seeing their project take shape has given the team members a great sense of achievement.

“Electricity, in particular, always seemed like an intimidating challenge to tackle, but now, I’ve learned so much,” says Shreya. “I’m proud of the solution that we created and the work we’ve done to create, test, innovate, and communicate our project to the world.”

Participating in the Junior Academy challenge has been an intense learning experience and the students are delighted that their hard work has paid off– winning the challenge is merely the icing on the cake.

“The Flexible Electricity Challenge, for me personally, was quite an eye-opener. From all the research done by everyone on the team, I’ve learned quite a few things about the grid, electricity supply, and the demand response system,” says Team Lead Abhi. “The late nights and the sheer amount of work each and every one put in on our project is something I’ll always remember and be grateful for.”

Math Anxiety: Experimental and Developmental Perspectives

This collection of papers brings together experimental and developmental perspectives on how mathematics anxiety impacts mathematics performance: studies within experimental psychology; studies on neural substrates of mathematics anxiety and its links to mathematics performance, and studies of interventions targeting emotional, behavioural, and cognitive aspects of mathematics anxiety. Importantly, intervention studies, apart from obvious practical benefits, shed unique light on causal mechanisms. The virtual issue is edited by Flavia H. Santos, Ann Dowker, Krzysztof Cipora, and Karin Kucian. See https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1111/(ISSN)1749-6632.math-anxiety.

Raising Awareness about Water Quality in Ukraine

Meet Sea Saviors, the winning team of the Fall 2021 Junior Academy Challenge “Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems.”

Published December 15, 2021

By Roger Torda

In the fall of 2021, six budding scientists entered the Junior Academy Challenge and teamed up online to address eutrophication in the Black Sea area and the Dnieper River that runs across Ukraine. Team members were Anzhelika-Mariia H. (Team Lead) (Ukraine), Kusum S. (Nepal), Aman Kumar F. (India), Manan P. (India), Ksheerja S. (India), and Viktoriia L. (Ukraine); the team worked under the mentorship of Pratibha Gupta (India).

Eutrophication is a naturally-occurring process that affects the chemical composition of water bodies. When this process is accelerated by human factors like industrial waste, sewage and fertilizers from farms, it causes excessive growth of algae and phytoplankton, oxygen deficiency, and dead zones – thus threatening ecosystems, biodiversity, and public health.

As a first step, the Challenge participants conducted research to better understand the root causes of the problem in the Dnieper River basin.

“I got tons of insights on eutrophication and how it is destroying our planet’s life,” explains Aman Kumar.

Encouraged by their mentor Pratibha (a.k.a. “Power Girl”), the students also looked at existing solutions before brainstorming new approaches that could improve the aquatic environment.

“Our mentor’s enlightening advice and expertise showed me just how vital the role of mentor is,” says Manan. “Hopefully, some day, I can become a Junior Academy mentor!”

Focusing Ecological Ditches

The team eventually opted to focus on ecological ditches, a traditional drainage system that developed in Ukraine in the 1960s, when the country was still part of the Soviet Union. Located at the edge of fields, eco-ditches allow excess rainwater to be carried away. In their conventional form, the drainage channels are inefficient at filtering unwanted fertilizer or nutrients and the team sought ways to improve them with better engineering.

“The diversity of our group, not only geographical, but also the unique personality that each of us carried added immense value to our work,” says Kusum.

The students identified a potential solution of adding plants with strong filtration capacity to eco-ditches, and looked at hydraulic flow rate control.

“I met hardworking individuals who helped me improve my own skills and taught me many valuable lessons in teamwork and analytical thinking,” says Ksheerja.

Eco-ditches require regular maintenance to remove sediments. While polluting industries can be easily identified, farms are harder to locate – yet farms release nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers that affect the delicate chemical balance of water bodies. The students saw a potential path to a sustainable solution: by mapping agricultural farms and existing canals, they could be linked into common drainage systems that could be monitored.

Raising Awareness Through Gaming

Raising awareness of the threats posed by eutrophication is also crucial. The Sea Saviors designed a web-based computer game aimed at children aged 8-13 to sensitize them to environmental issues.

“My role was to be a game designer and developer. Because of the Junior Academy, I found out about different ways of creating the video game and practiced one more game developing engine,” says Viktoriia.

In the two-level game, a friendly sea monster tries to make the aquatic environment more habitable for his fish buddies. In the process, Bob the Monster introduces young players to ecological ditches and the cultivation of oyster shells as ways of regulating the aquatic ecosystem.

“My team was tenacious and industrious from the beginning,” says Pratibha, thrilled with her mentees’ achievements. “Each member had faith in the other one to work diligently.”

For the winning team members, the project has been a stimulating learning experience that allowed them to form strong bonds.

“Working on this project boosted my motivation to continue my studies in the hope of becoming a scientist one day,” said Anzhelika-Mariia.

How the Brain Gives Rise to the Mind

This Year’s Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists Laureate in the Life Sciences is connecting the activity of cells and synapses to emotions and social behavior

Published October 21, 2021

By Roger Torda

Neuroscientist Kay Tye has challenged orthodoxy in her field by studying the connection between the brain and the mind. The work has led to breakthroughs in basic science. It also points to new approaches to mental illness, with significant potential impact.

Tye is a professor in the Systems Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. She and her research team work to identify the neural mechanism of emotional and social processing, in health and disease. Tye explained to the New York Academy of Sciences why this work is so important.

Impacts on Mental Health

“Mental health disorders have a prevalence of one in two. This is half the population. If we could understand how the brain gives rise to the mind, we could de-stigmatize mental health, and everyone would go and get the treatment that they need,” she says.

Current therapies for mental disorders are developed by trial-and-error, with drugs that have broad ranges of effects. Tye envisions a much different approach, with treatments that target specific mechanisms in the brain.

“Our insights could revolutionize our approach to mental health treatments, supporting individualized therapies that would be effective for everyone and have the precision to be free of side effects,” she says.

Neuroscientist Kay Tye at the Salk Institute

Tye’s work is widely recognized, and this year the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists named Tye its 2021 Life Sciences Laureate.

Tye’s Background

Tye is the daughter of two scientists—a biologist and a physicist—who met while travelling to the U.S. from Hong Kong to pursue their educations. From a young age, Tye says she was fascinated by subjective experiences, foreshadowing her studies on the connection between brain and mind.

“How do I feel the way I feel?” Tye recalls wondering as a child. “How can two people listen to the same song and one person loves it and one person hates it? What are emotions?”

Tye with her children

Tye went to MIT for her undergraduate degree and received her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Francisco. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford, she opened her lab as an assistant professor at MIT in 2012. In 2019, she moved across the country again, to the Salk Institute.

As Tye gained confidence as a young scientist, she took on a difficult professional challenge as she sought to examine questions that had not traditionally been the purview of her field.

“As a neuroscientist, I’m often told I am not allowed to study how internal states like anxiety, or craving, or loneliness are represented by the brain,” she recalled in a TED Talk. “And so, I decided to set out and do exactly that.”

Research in Optogenetics

In her research, Tye uses technology called “optogenetics,” which transfers the light sensitivity of certain proteins found in some algae to specific neurons in the brains of lab animals. Researchers can then use light to control signaling by the neuron, and they can establish links between the neuron and specific behavior. Tye developed an approach using this tool called “projection-specific optogenetic manipulation.”

“This permits scientists to dissect the tangled mess of wires that is our brains to understand where each wire goes and what each wire does,” Tye said.

Kay Tye in the lab

Tye’s postdoctoral training was in the Stanford University lab of Karl Deisseroth, who had recently developed optogenetics. Many young neuroscientists wanted to be among the first to use optogenetics, and Tye was eager to use it to study behavior and emotion. Tye recalled that period.

“It was a very exciting time in neuroscience, and in 2009 I already felt like I had come late to the party, and knew I needed to push the field forward to make a new contribution,” Tye says. “I worked absurdly hard during my postdoc, fueled by the rapidly changing landscape of neuroscience, and feel like I did five years of work in that two-year period.”

Analyzing Neural Circuits

Tye’s research program initially focused on the neural circuits that process emotional valence, the degree to which the brain assigns positive or negative value to certain sensory information. Her lab has analyzed the neural circuits controlling valence processing in psychiatric and substance abuse disorders.

This work includes the discovery of a group of neurons connecting the cerebral cortex to the brainstem that can serve as a biomarker to predict whether an animal will develop compulsive alcohol drinking behavior. Recent research has focused on neurons activated when animals experience social isolation and enter “loneliness-like” states.

Kay Tye in the lab

Tye and her research team are also exploring how the brain represents “social homeostasis”— a new field of research which seeks to understand how individuals know their place within a social group and identify optimal amounts of social contact.

Kay Tye and her lab team

Pushing Boundaries in Her Field

Even after considerable success in her field, Tye says she still feels as though she is pushing boundaries of her discipline. In doing so, she is continuing to bring neuroscience rigor to the study of feelings and emotions. Referring to her recent work, Tye said:

We faced a lot of pushback with this line of research, just because “loneliness” isn’t a word that has been used in neuroscience until now. These types of processes, these psychological constructs didn’t belong in what people considered to be hardcore neuroscience.

We are now bringing rigorous neuroscience approaches to ideas that were purely conceptual before. And so we’re being quantitative. We are being mechanistic. We are creating biologically grounded, predictive dynamical models for these nebulous ideas like “feelings” and “emotions.” And this is something that I find extremely gratifying.

Kay and colleagues at Salk Insitute

The Key to Balancing a Research Career and Parenting

A family consisting of a man, women, toddler daughter, and newborn baby.

Much like being a parent, science never stops. Daniel Straus, 2021 Blavatnik Regional Awards Winner in Chemistry, provides insight on how to balance these two responsibilities.

Published September 23, 2021

By Daniel Straus

Science never stops, for better or for worse. I am a competitive person. A constant fear of mine is being “scooped” by another lab, rendering months or years of research unpublishable for a lack of novelty. Taking time off work exacerbates this risk—people in other labs will keep working while I am not. This fear preoccupied me when I took time off after my first child was born.

When my daughter Elizabeth was born in 2016, I was a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. Graduate students at Penn are not considered employees, so I did not have access to the 12 weeks of protected unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. I was fortunate that Penn offered eight paid weeks to graduate students after the birth of a child—paternity leave is often overlooked, and many graduate schools do not provide any paternity leave.

After Elizabeth was born, I took the first two weeks off to take care of her, bond with her, and support my wife. I then went back to work for ten more weeks while my wife stayed home with Elizabeth. Then, my wife returned to work, and I took the remaining six weeks of my leave. My productivity at work in the ten weeks I was back was poor and I don’t remember much of this time because I barely slept. I can only imagine how unproductive I would have been had I gone back to work immediately after her birth.

During the last six weeks of my leave I was more relaxed because I realized my time was much better spent with my daughter. There was nothing as spectacular as watching my child learn and do new things every day. Nothing can replace family—I enjoy my work and doing science, but I work to live and to support my family. The time spent at home did not impede my science anyway; rather, it helped me bond with my daughter and rest so that when I did go back to work full-time, I could maximize my productivity and not fall asleep at my desk.

Being a parent has improved my science. I have learned to be more productive in the time I spend in lab so I can spend as much time as possible with my family at home. I am much better at planning my days in lab in advance and also at saying “no” to non-essential things for which I do not have time, such as reviewing manuscripts during busy times.

My mentoring skills have also improved from being a parent. Elizabeth loves doing things herself—even as a one-year-old, she hated having things done for her. When I would try to buckle her into her highchair, for instance, she would scream “SELF” or “LIZZY DO IT.” She couldn’t buckle herself the first few times she tried, and she relented to letting me help after five minutes of struggling. But by trying so many times, she eventually figured out how to do it herself. No student has ever screamed “SELF” when I would “help” (they would probably say “interfere”) with something they were doing, so Elizabeth taught me that when someone is figuring out how to do something, many times the most helpful thing is to do nothing until asked.

Being a scientist has also improved my parenting. In the lab, I reason through questions on my own or with the help of my mentors—there usually isn’t an immediately correct answer because if there were, it would not be novel research. When Elizabeth asks me a question, being a scientist has taught me to first ask her, “what do you think?” so she can develop her own reasoning skills. Curiosity is better satisfied through discovery than through answers. She also loves science and likes to learn new things—her favorite YouTube channel is SciShow Kids, where she watches age-appropriate videos about topics in science, and after watching one she is so excited to share the new things she learned with me. Much of my postdoctoral work involves solving the crystal structures of materials, so when she saw me looking at a crystal structure on my laptop, she wanted to “do crystals” too because she thinks that I drag around a 3D model of a crystal structure all day at work (she’s not entirely wrong…).

My son Noah was born in April, and thankfully Princeton provides employees (including postdocs) 12 paid weeks of parental leave. Parenting is hard work, and people who are not parents may not understand this. While on parental leave, I received emails from multiple people saying, “I hope you’re enjoying your vacation.” Being with Noah is more exhausting than being in lab, but also more rewarding. Science still never stops—I had to submit a manuscript revision while home to meet a deadline—but I am trying to enjoy every minute with Noah before going back to work full-time, because parenting never stops either.

This piece was originally published on the National Postdoctoral Association member blog as part of 2021 National Postdoc Appreciation Week. Current Academy Members can receive a 20% discount on a National Postdoctoral Association postdoc individual membership by emailing info@nyas.org and requesting the NPA membership discount code

Learn more about the 2021 Blavatnik Regional Awards for Young Scientists

About the Author

Daniel B. Straus is the Chemistry Winner of the 2021 Blavatnik Regional Awards for Young Scientists. You can learn more about him and the Blavatnik Awards at Blavatnikawards.org

The Exciting, Unchartered World of Nanomaterials

Crystalline nanomaterials viewed under a microscope.

Imagine if we could detect health problems before they become life-threatening.

Published June 04, 2021

By Benjamin Schroeder, PhD

Imagine if we could charge our cell phones by plugging them into our backpack, or if we could build a biocompatible probe that could interface with our cells and detect health problems before they become life-threatening.

Working at nanoscale, scientists are now capable of assembling molecules and atoms into structures that have exactly the desired properties they want a new material to possess. The prefix “nano” is used in the metric system to describe 10^-9 parts of a whole, or 0.000000001—an exceedingly small number. But the term is also used to define an entire field of new and exciting research at a very, very, tiny scale.

We recently interviewed Jess Wade, PhD, a Research Fellow at Imperial College London, about all things nano. Her research is focused on new materials for optoelectronic devices, with a particular emphasis on chiral organic semiconductors. She has also recently written a children’s book entitled Nano: The Spectacular Science of the Very (Very) Small, illustrated by Melissa Castrillon and published by Candlewick.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Many researchers in your field of materials science are drawing inspiration from nature to design new nanomaterials with novel shapes and functions. Why is that such an important consideration?

Because nature has been nailing this for a really long time. We look around and see naturally occurring structures that are super-strong, super-efficient, and in some cases capable of generating clean energy from the sun. I think we—as physicists, chemists, and materials scientists—can learn a lot from looking at natural, biological forms and trying to recreate their desirable properties in our labs.

Nature has evolved to be as efficient and streamlined as it can be, and we’re learning from that and applying it in areas like renewable energy and electronic display research. It is important for us to study those systems because nature has been getting it right for much longer than we have!

Crystalline nanomaterials viewed under a microscope. Photo Credit: Dr. Jess Wade

If nature has perfected processes like photosynthesis and cellular respiration, is it really possible to improve on nature’s design when creating new nanomaterials?

Molecules like proteins and peptides and similar compounds are essential in biological processes, but often have very strict operating requirements: they don’t behave normally when they get too hot or when they get very, very cold or when we put them in electromagnetic fields. So we can look at biological systems, examine what gives rise to their important properties, and ask, for example, “how can we design more resilient materials for technological purposes?”

I think even though nature has really perfected certain materials and processes, it has only really done so for a specific function. We can still improve these natural materials by tailoring them to what we want.

In terms of discoveries that will potentially have a major influence on our daily lives, what are some of the breakthroughs in nano that you anticipate seeing in the next 15-20 years?

In 15-20 years more of us will have solar technologies that result from manipulation of the nanoscale properties of materials. For example, take materials like perovskites: hybrid organic/inorganic crystals that are incredibly efficient at generating electricity when they absorb light from the sun. Once scientists have optimized their nanostructures and fabrication protocols, perovskites will allow us to have flexible, integrated power supplies that can be incorporated into our clothing, our backpacks, and any surface that might be beneficial. I think there will also be a more concerted effort for scientists to work closely with designers to create wearable devices and other technologies that combine aesthetics with cutting-edge science.

You’ve just published a beautifully-illustrated children’s book entitled, Nano: The Spectacular Science of the Very (Very) Small. What was your inspiration to write such a book, and can we expect to see additional children’s books from you covering different topics in science?

I find the science that you’re covering in the upcoming webinar “Finding Inspiration for Functional Nanomaterials from Nature,” and the nanoscience that I get to do in my day job extraordinarily exciting. Parents, students, and teachers don’t get quite as excited about it as they could because it’s not on their radar, and they get intimidated by jargon and buzzwords they do not really understand.

I wanted to write a book that young people read and then think, “chemistry is really cool! materials science is awesome! we can solve the global challenges by thinking from the atom up!,” but also a book that their parents read and think, “hey, maybe I was wrong to hate that so much when I was in school.”

I would absolutely love to create additional children’s books. There are a lot more areas of science that could have kid’s books. Dinosaurs are covered, space is covered, but there could be more and better coverage in physics and other areas, and I am excited about the possibilities.

Making STEM Education Accessible for All

Two young students participate in a simple science experiment.

STEM education is more important than ever. In our ever-changing, technology-driven world, students must be equipped with the knowledge and skills afforded by STEM learning—problem solving, critical thinking, curiosity, and persistence, among many others. STEM expertise is also desperately needed to address the many challenges facing our world, particularly those identified by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Yet in many places throughout the world—in developed and developing countries alike—students lack access to meaningful STEM learning.

On February 23, 2021, The New York Academy of Sciences hosted a discussion between Chief Learning Officer Hank Nourse and Mmantsetsa Marope, Executive Director of the World Heritage Group. They explored the impacts of STEM education on individual, national, and global development.

In this eBriefing, you will learn:

What high-quality STEM education looks like
How STEM learning benefits individuals
The importance of STEM education to national and global development
How we might ensure equitable access to STEM learning, particularly in the face of growing inequities exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic

Advancing STEM Education for All

Speakers

Mmantsetsa Marope
World Heritage Group

Hank Nourse
The New York Academy of Sciences

Mmantsetsa Marope, PhD
World Heritage Group

Mmantsetsa Marope is widely regarded as a thought leader on education, the future of education and work, and learning systems capable of preparing students for rapidly changing and unpredictable futures. She is Executive Director of the World Heritage Group, an organization dedicated to building resilient, agile, and future-forward education systems. She is Honorary President of the Indian Ocean Comparative and International Education Societies and Lead Global Advisor for China’s Education and Innovation for Development EXPO.

Prior to founding the World Heritage Group, Dr. Marope spent four decades in the civil service and the nonprofit sectors, including senior roles at the World Bank and, most recently, UNESCO, where she served as Director of the International Bureau of Education. Dr. Marope holds a PhD in education from the University of Chicago, an MEd from Penn State University, and BA and CDE degrees from the University of Botswana and Swaziland.

Hank Nourse
The New York Academy of Sciences

Hank Nourse leads the Academy’s Global STEM Alliance (GSA), a bold initiative to advance science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education worldwide. With hundreds of partners, and reaching participants in over 100 countries, the GSA directly engages tens of thousands of students and teachers annually, providing mentorship, skill building, and professional development spanning K-12 and higher education.

Prior to joining the Academy in 2015, Hank spent more than 15 years developing online learning and assessment programs for the K–12 market, primarily at Scholastic, a global children’s publishing and media company. He holds a Master’s degree in International Educational Development from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a Bachelor’s degree from Gonzaga University.

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