Courtesy: Medill Reports Chicago
Photos courtesy of Melina Kibbe. Dr. Melina Kibbe and Steven D. Jacobsen show off their Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers.
Two Northwestern University professors returned to Chicago today after shaking hands with President Barack Obama and receiving the top government honor given to young researchers with pioneering work. Steven D. Jacobsen, an experimental geoscientist, and Dr. Melina Kibbe, a vascular surgeon, received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in Washington, D.C. Wednesday.
Four other Illinois scientists also received the award: Ionnas Chasiotis, assistant professor in aerospace engineering at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Maria M. Calbi, assistant professor in physics at Southern Illinois University; Gregory S. Engel, assistant professor in chemistry at University of Chicago, and Lynford L. Goddard, assistant professor in engineering at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Jacobsen, 36, and Kibbe, 41, were among 100 honorees to receive the prestigious award Wednesday.
“It was really a wonderful day,” Kibbe said Thursday.
The group toured the White House in the morning and received their awards in an afternoon ceremony at the Commerce Building. After a reception, they walked to the White House for photos and a gathering with the president and John Holdren, Obama’s science and technology adviser.
“It was certainly a moment to remember,” Jacobsen said Wednesday evening, referring to Obama’s arrival. “He came straight up to us with a big smile on his face,” he said, describing Obama as relaxed, cheerful and gracious.
In an informal speech to the award recipients, Obama expressed a deep appreciation for the importance of their work and their future as leaders in science and technology, Jacobsen and Kibbe said. “He clarified that he was extremely supportive of basic science and research, which is great news for the future,” Jacobsen said.
The opportunity for the honorees to meet and share their work and ideas with each other was “an unexpectedly rewarding aspect of the trip,” Kibbe said. “It was a very inspiring event being in the same room with 99 other experts and leaders in the scientific community. And, of course, Obama.”
Established in 1996 by former President Bill Clinton, the award has two criteria: pursuit of innovative research and a demonstrated commitment to the community. Nine federal agencies meet annually to nominate candidates whose early achievements support the agencies’ missions and show great potential to bolster science and technology leadership in the U.S.
Jacobsen received his nomination from the National Science Foundation, and Kibbe was one of two chosen by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The award includes five years of research funding from the nominating agency.
Jacobsen, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, is a down-to-earth guy with some groundbreaking ideas – literally. His research suggests that more water may be embedded in the earth’s core than in all of the oceans combined. If true, his theory could help explain the physical evolution of Earth and how these conditions enabled life to flourish.
“Water strongly influences rock’s physical properties and could explain plate tectonics,” Jacobsen said. By reacting water with minerals at high temperatures and pressures, Jacobsen speculates that rocks 250-400 miles beneath the Earth’s surface can hold an extraordinary amount of water – not the wet kind, but water actually dissolved into the rock. “Less than 1 percent of the weight of these rocks is water, but because of the large amount of rock in the mantle it quickly reaches oceanic proportions,” Jacobsen said.
Outside of the lab, Jacobsen teaches after-school and weekend courses for Project EXCITE – a science and math enrichment program for bright minority students in the Evanston-Skokie school district – at Northwestern University’s Center for Talent Development. “We aim to close the achievement gap and get more minorities enrolled in advanced science and math courses at Evanston Township,” Jacobsen said. He is also a Faculty Fellow of the Public Affairs Residential College.
Jacobsen lives in Evanston with his wife, Vickie Jacobsen, and their two daughters, Evelyn, 7, and Guinevere, 4, who accompanied him on his trip to Washington.
Kibbe, associate professor of surgery at the Feinberg School of Medicine, has made strides in vascular procedures and technology. She has focused on developing improved therapies for people with vascular disease and a deeper understanding of nitric oxide vascular biology.
“For people with vascular disease and damaged arteries, nitric oxide is one of the best drugs,” Kibbe said, noting that nitric oxide can be difficult to work with and has not been well understood until recently. “It’s a molecule that’s already natural in our bodies – it’s meant to be there and has all of these beneficial properties.”
An active member of the scientific community, Kibbe holds leadership positions in several national surgical societies, including the Association for Academic Surgery. She serves on study sections for the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs and is an associate editor for the Journal of Surgical Research.
Kibbe brought her boyfriend, Don DuPree, and father, Keith Kibbe. Her father, a retired nuclear engineer, relished the opportunity to talk with the various scientists and engineers and was like “a kid in a candy store,” she said.
Courtesy: Medill Reports Chicago
