2013 Annual Report Momentum: The Institute for Molecular Engineering Surges Ahead IME Annual Report 2013 Momentum: IME Surges Ahead THE UNIVERSITY OF ChicagO Table of Contents 1 Contents Director’s Letter 2 By the Numbers 5 Investigation 6 Andrew Cleland 7 Giulia Galli 8 “Traditional engineering Jeff Hubbell 9 schools divide engineering Melody Swartz 11 subject matter into 20 Fellows 12 different departments Innovation 14 and disciplines; IME Water Research Initiative 15 Seed Grants 16 combines disciplines Chicago Innovation Exchange 17 into a new approach to Upscaling 18 engineering research Impact 22 and education.” Seeing Results 23 Matthew Tirrell A Wise Investment 24 Pritzker Director Mutually Inclusive 25 Institute for Molecular Engineering Forging the Future 25 IME PhD 26 Minor in Molecular Engineering 27 Life Changing 27 Events & Activities 28 Campus Connections 32 Global Network 33 COVER: Soft matter LEFT: Earth 2 IME Annual Report 2013 Momentum: IME Surges Ahead THE UNIVERSITY OF ChicagO Director’s Letter 3 One of the principal things I have learned, in my 30 months at the Institute for Molecular Engineering, is that the nature of my job, as well as those of all Matthew Tirrell the faculty and staff, changes continually as we grow. We are no longer in our Pritzker Director infancy, but we’re still growing rapidly. We’re endeavoring never to miss the Institute for Molecular Engineering special opportunity that doing something for the first time embodies. That is a unique promise and possibility of IME. As we embark on the year 2014, we have begun the process of articulating our vision and mission in a clear and compelling fashion: • VISION: The Institute for Molecular Engineering is transforming research and education to become a world leader in solving major technological problems of global significance, and continually Transforming, Solving, Inspiring inspiring creative applications of molecular-level science. IME’s vision of the future • MISSION: Our mission is to translate discoveries in physics, chemistry, Since our inaugural report a year ago, the faculty of the Institute for Molecular biology, and medicine into solutions to important societal problems, Engineering has doubled in size from four to eight members, strengthening and to create a research and teaching environment to enhance and our group in quantum materials and computational engineering, and broad- transmit these capabilities to future generations. ening our expertise in bioengineering and water. Having built this foundation, we find ourselves at the edges of two transitions. Let us know what you think; email us at [email protected]. First of all, with eight faculty members, we can expand from a near-exclusive focus on growth to beginning to deliver, and we are delivering on numerous fronts. We had established about $2.5 million of new, funded research at the Matthew Tirrell University of Chicago as of the end of fiscal 2013 in July, and that grew to Pritzker Director more than $4 million by the end of the calendar year. In May, we received Institute for Molecular Engineering approval from the University’s Council of the Academic Senate to establish a PhD degree in Molecular Engineering. As of this writing, IME faculty are deeply immersed in reviewing applications and beginning to recruit the very top candidates that we identify. In December, the Curriculum Committee of the College approved the establishment of an undergraduate minor in Molecular Engineering, setting the stage for the implementation of a full undergraduate degree program by the time the class that matriculates next fall graduates in 2018. The first IME course, “Introduction to Emerging Technologies,” will also be delivered in the autumn. A second major transition is moving from hiring established faculty members to hiring entry-level assistant professors. The process is different when hiring “In the year ahead, IME’s scientists and engineers will combine junior faculty, in that more candidates must be interviewed to determine the exceptional resources of the University of Chicago and Argonne the optimum talents and fits. New faculty members, fresh from doctoral and postdoctoral work, bring new energy, ideas, techniques, and styles, and to carry out research on the most important challenges of our time they also require mentorship, collaboration, and guidance in shaping their in energy, water, medicine, and molecular-level sciences.” academic careers. These new members, who will begin to join us in the next — Eric D. Isaacs, Provost Designate, Director of Argonne National Laboratory, year, will be the long-term keepers of the distinctive culture and approaches Professor in Physics, James Franck Institute, and the College to molecular engineering research and education that we are creating at the University of Chicago. IME Annual Report 2013 Momentum: IME Surges Ahead THE UNIVERSITY OF ChicagO By the Numbers 5 Institute for Molecular Engineering By the Numbers New stats for 2013 show growth at the Institute for Molecular Engineering. Our faculty doubled, we appointed 20 fellows from around the University and Argonne National Laboratory, and we continued to rack up publications and grants. Our strong start shouldn’t be a surprise; we’re young, ambitious, and healthy—perfect conditions for thriving. 8 20 26 Engineering IME fellows Postdoctoral faculty members researchers 26 14 19 Graduate Undergraduate Grants totaling students researchers $2.5 million awarded in FY ’13 to IME researchers 35Publications with IME affiliations Graduate students pursue discovery at IME LEFT: Galli’s water molecules IME Annual Report 2013 Doubling Down THE UNIVERSITY OF ChicagO Investigation 7 Doubling Down Founding faculty doubles in size Expansion marked the year 2013 at the Institute for Molecular Engineering, with four prominent senior scholars joining the faculty. Their specialties range from cancer bioengineering and water research to quantum comput- ing and regenerative medicine. The new faculty members will join a preeminent group that includes pioneers in the molecular design of materials and new kinds of electronic circuitry. Three of the new faculty members also will hold joint appointments at IME’s partner institution, Argonne National Laboratory, a global leader in computing and materials research and a partner of the Institute for Molecular Engineering. “ In the quantum world, it’s Godzilla.” Andrew Cleland to arrive in summer 2014 “Experimental physicist Andrew Cleland may have become the first man to catch a glimpse of the parallel universe,” says actor Morgan Freeman in a Discovery Channel feature on Cleland. Cleland, who will join the IME faculty from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in the summer of 2014, led the research team that built the first quantum machine, demonstrating that “big” objects also obey the rules of quantum mechanics. Science magazine named the accomplishment the “Breakthrough of the Year” in 2010. “Everyone thinks quantum mechanics is associated only with very, very small things,” said Cleland. “But if quantum mechanics is the fundamental description, then it should apply to everything, not just to electrons and atoms but also to tennis balls and cars and people.” Of course, “big” is relative. The quantum machine was built inside a small square of silicone, where Cleland and his team had etched a barely visible metal paddle Investigation (about the width of a human hair) made up of over a trillion atoms. Before, the biggest experiment to demonstrate the quantum effect only had about 100 atoms. As Freeman described the machine, “In the quantum world, it’s Godzilla.” At IME, Cleland’s group will continue its efforts to build superconducting quantum LEFT: Quantum information 8 IME Annual Report 2013 Doubling Down THE UNIVERSITY OF ChicagO Investigation 9 Doubling Down Founding faculty doubles in size Andrew Cleland (continued) “Fifteen years ago no one was talking about prac- Giulia Galli (continued) “Innovations do not happen in isolation,” said tical applications for using quantum states,” said Galli. “The wide array of scientific activities within information systems that aim to read and decode Cleland. “But today we understand the physics of Galli’s other work includes 15 years of studying the University of Chicago is just phenomenal. encrypted messages millions of times faster than how this can be done and have taken a big first the properties of water at ambient conditions and I couldn’t think of a better opportunity.” current state-of-the-art methods. This could be step by showing that such devices can be built. under pressure. At UChicago, she will work with used, for example, to measure virus loads in bio- Now it’s mostly an engineering problem and a scientists from around the University in the newly logical solutions and has potential applications in matter of how much money and resources will be established Water Research Initiative. Galli will also medicine, pharmaceuticals, and food additives. available to solve it.” continue her work with the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, one of her many research sponsors. It not only has one of the biggest com- puters in the world, but its team of computational “Matt’s putting together an amazing collection of people scientists can help Galli generate and test her computational methods and codes. working together to solve big problems.” —Andrew Cleland Galli’s work studies the properties of water in materials Intersecting Ideas From Laboratory to Real Life Working as the Merck-Serono Chair in Drug