Jessica I-Jane Chuang, Harvard University

Her nominator, Dr. Cynthia Friend, wrote that Jessica is an impressive student with considerable ambition and talent. Jessica has already distinguished herself in undergraduate research and course work while maintaining an active participation in her interest as a musician. Jessica's research career started before she entered college. In the second semester of her senior year in high school, as a special student, she took the month-long thermondynamics module of the general chemistry course taught by Dr. Norman Craig at Oberlin College and attained the highest grade for that module in a class of 120 college students. In the summer after graduation from high school, she asked to do research in Dr. Craig's laboratory without a stipend and only for the experience. She explored a new idea for synthesizing isotopic species of 1,1,2,2,-tetrafluoroethane and quickly learned her way around a vacuum system, an infrared spectrometer, a high field NMR spectrometer and preparative GC. In the summer after her freshman year at Harvard, she passed up an interesting offer at NASA Lewis Research Center to gamble on the possibility of Dr. Craig receiving a new NSF grant and returned to Oberlin to continue the synthesis project. The successful synthesis led to two cooperative projects with Justus Liebig University in Germany and the National Institute of Standards and Spectroscopy in Gaithersburg, MD. At Harvard, Jessica joined Professor Charles Lieber's group and carried out research on the mechanical properties of DNA at the single molecule level. Dr. Lieber stated that "Jessica is an exceptional young student ...who has all the key characteristics that I believe are critical for a career at the highest level in the sciences." He further commented that Jessica is highly motivated and has the intellectual tools to do so. Working essentially on her own initiative, she accomplished a difficult synthesis of several oligonucleotides in record time. Dr. Lieber wrote that he doubted that a postdoctoral fellow could have accomplished so much in such a short period of time. Jessica maintains an active life outside of the chemistry lab. She is the vice president of the undergraduate student group Women in Science at Harvard-Radcliffe, supervising social outreach for the organization. She is also helping to organize a program for members to volunteer at Boston's area hospitals. Because she believes that introductory science courses are critical for determining undergraduate women's attitudes towards majoring in the sciences, she has initiated a study group program aimed at first-year women and involving undergraduate peer tutors. Through her efforts, she hopes to motivate and encourage more female students to pursue scientific degrees and careers. Jessica is the Concertmaster of the Mozart Society Orchestra for which she was also President. She combined her love of music with her love of chemistry by performing the Brahms clarinet quintet with her chemistry colleagues for the summer school chemistry students. In her essay, Jessica stated that she aspires to be "an excellent educator, a good researcher and a sound scientist" just like her mentor, Dr. Craig. Jessica's award was presented to her by Dr. Cynthia Friend.

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