Four young scientists win Argonne fellowships

ARGONNE , Ill. (July 28, 2004) – Four scientists have been awarded Named Postdoctoral Fellowships at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory in recognition of their science expertise and research promise.

The fellowships are named to honor scientific and technical luminaries associated with Argonne, its predecessors and the University of Chicago since the 1940s. The four recipients, who will receive funding for their research activities at Argonne, are Jeff Catalano, Mike Zach, Jeffrey Guest and Jake Socha.

Jeff Catalano, with a Ph.D. in geological and environmental sciences from Stanford University, is the Harold Urey postdoctoral fellow in Argonne 's Environmental Research Division.

Catalano's academic research focused on the chemistry of uranium in highly contaminated sites. Specifically, he studied how dissolved uranium interacts with mineral surfaces that can bind to and immobilize the uranium before it travels into drinking water. This research has applications in environmental cleanup and water treatment.

Catalano will continue this research at Argonne, using advanced X-ray scattering and spectroscopic methods at the Advanced Photon Source to further examine how uranium interacts with minerals. He will also study the role other factors such as carbon dioxide and dissolved salts may play in the interaction.

Harold Urey was a University of Chicago chemistry professor and discoverer of deuterium.

Mike Zach, whose Ph.D. is in chemistry from the University of California, Irvine, won the Glenn Seaborg Postdoctoral Fellowship. He will be in Argonne's Materials Science Division where he will continue his work on creating nanostructures that may ultimately be used in future fuel cell-powered vehicles.

While at UC Irvine, Zach used a laboratory method called electrodeposition to cause dissolved metal ions to form solid nanostructures on an electrode surface. In fact, his team used this method to create the palladium nanowires that are used in the world's fastest hydrogen sensors.

At Argonne, Zach is already working on a system that would perform 64 electrodeposition experiments in the same time as it took his Irvine team to do one. By varying the concentration of the metals and the amount of electricity passed through the solution, Zach hopes to identify trends that can serve as a model for generating new nanostructures.

Glenn Seaborg was an early nuclear research pioneer, and was a discoverer of several transuranic elements. He served in the 1960s as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Jeffrey Guest is a Ph.D. in applied physics from the University of Michigan. Guest will serve as the Arthur Holly Compton postdoctoral fellow in Argonne 's Physics Division.

Guest performed quantum research at Michigan, looking at the properties of atomic particles used in semiconductors. His team used lasers to cool particles to near absolute zero, slowing them enough to be trapped and studied in detail. This research may have applications in quantum computing, leading to smaller, faster computers.

Guest's expertise in using lasers to cool and trap particles will be valuable to his Argonne team in its attempts to challenge the standard model of electric dipole moments. The EDM refers to the uneven distribution of atomic charge at increasingly smaller scales, but its current model insufficiently explains observed events. Guest and his team hope to improve upon the model to increase science's understanding of atomic phenomena.

Arthur Holly Compton was president of the University of Chicago during the 1940s and oversaw the University's research efforts on the Manhattan Project, including the first sustained nuclear reaction.

Jake Socha earned his Ph.D. in biomechanics from the University of Chicago. He is the Ugo Fano postdoctoral fellow and will be in the Experimental Facilities Division at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne.

Socha's main interest is learning how animals work mechanically, that is, how their structure relates to function. As a doctoral student, he studied a species of snake in Singapore called the flying snake. How, he wondered, can a cylindrical animal glide through the air? He used 3-D mapping and aerodynamic modeling to find out. Some of his results are posted on his Web site at flyingsnake.org.

His research at Argonne continues the animal biomechanics theme. His team is studying the internal mechanics of beetles to understand how they breathe. By immobilizing and X-raying the insects, his team hopes to figure out how their network of respiratory tubes conducts gas exchange through their bodies. Such research may have potential in agricultural pest control.

Argonne National Laboratory brings the world's brightest scientists and engineers together to find exciting and creative new solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America 's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

For more information, please contact Catherine Foster (630/252-5580 or media@anl.gov) at Argonne.