Ott Lecture to explore nanomaterials

An award-winning chemist and educator, recognized for her research regarding creating "nanoscale" materials will be the featured speaker at the Arnold C. Ott Lectureship in Chemistry at Grand Valley State University April 14.

Sara Skrabalak is currently the James H. Rudy Associate Professor of Chemistry at Indiana University-Bloomington. Her research focuses on nanomaterial design and synthesis, the creation of new materials that are on the "nanoscale" (one billionth of a meter).

While visiting Grand Valley, Skrabalak will give a public lecture, entitled "From Honeycombs, Spider Webs and Snowflakes to Stellated Metals: Symmetry in Nature and Nanomaterials,” Thursday, April 14, at 6 p.m. in Loosemore Auditorium on the Pew Grand Rapids Campus. A reception will precede the lecture at 5 p.m.

Skrabalak will also facilitate a chemistry seminar for students on Friday, April 15, at 1 p.m. "Shaping the Synthesis of Bimetallic Nanocrystals" will take place in the Pere Marquette Room located in Kirkhof Center on the Allendale Campus.

Most nanoscale materials are too small to be seen with the naked eye and even with conventional lab microscopes. Materials engineered to such a small scale are often referred to as engineered nanomaterials, and, for example, could be added to cement, cloth or other materials to make them stronger or lighter.

"Nanoscience is an exciting field, with many cross-disciplinary applications, including chemistry, biology, physics, medicine and engineering," said Jessica VandenPlas, assistant professor of chemistry and Ott Lecture coordinator. "Understanding what these materials are, how they are made, and how they can be used will help people better understand the world around them, and be better consumers of these new materials."

The size of nanomaterials makes them useful in electronics, and they can also be used in environmental remediation or clean-up to bind with and neutralize toxins. Nanotechnology can even be used to design pharmaceutical drugs that can target specific organs or cells in the body, such as cancer cells.

Skrabalak was the 2012 Research Corporation Cottrell Scholar, a Sloan Research Fellow in 2013 and the 2014 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. She has accumulated multiple awards throughout her career, including the 2014 ACS Award in Pure Chemistry and the 2015 Baekeland Award. Skrabalak earned a doctoral degree in chemistry in 2006 from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The Arnold C. Ott Lectureship in Chemistry was created and endowed by a gift from the late Arnold C. and Marion Ott. Arnold Ott was a leading chemist and entrepreneur in West Michigan. He was also one of the co-founders of Grand Valley and served on the Board of Trustees for 28 years.

For more information, contact Grand Valley’s Chemistry Department at (616) 331-3317 or visit the Chemistry Department website.