Two Northwestern University faculty members have been awarded the highest honor given by the U.S. government to outstanding scientists and engineers who are in the early stages of their independent research careers.
Two Northwestern University faculty members have been awarded the highest honor given by the U.S. government to outstanding scientists and engineers who are in the early stages of their independent research careers.
Malcolm MacIver and Emily Weiss have been awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and will be invited to the White House to meet President Obama and attend an awards ceremony.
MacIver is being recognized for his interdisciplinary work on the biomechanical and neural basis of intelligence, spanning robotics, biomechanics, neurobiology, philosophy and computation, as well as for his innovative science outreach efforts that include Hollywood science-fiction advisory efforts, interactive art installations and writing for Discover magazine’s blog “Science Not Fiction.”
MacIver is associate professor of biomedical and mechanical engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Weiss is being recognized for her work employing nanostructures in a new capacity: as solution-phase model systems for studying the usually difficult-to-interrogate interactions between solid-phase surfaces and organic molecules. She is studying the dynamics of photoexcited states of colloidal quantum dots: nanometer-sized clusters of compound semiconductor capped by a monolayer of organic ligands.
Weiss, who lives in Evanston, is the Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.