New scientists join Argonne's Center for Nanoscale Materials

Argonne, Ill. (Sept. 6, 2007) – Two new scientists have joined the Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM) at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. Elena Rozhkova and Elena Shevchenko are contributing their expertise to the NanoBio Interfaces Group.

“We are looking forward to having these two scientists conduct research with us at one of the best venues available,” said Tijana Rajh, Argonne's CNM NanoBio Interfaces group leader.

“With their assistance we will continue our integration of soft biological and organic molecular assemblies with hard inorganic nanoarchitectures to be applied to chemical catalysis, sensors, energy and information storage, developing new cures for cancer and biological intervention,” she added.

Rozhkova earned her Ph.D in Chemistry, with specialization in Bioorganic Chemistry and Chemistry of Natural Bioactive compounds, from Moscow State Academy of Fine Chemical Technology in Russia in 1997. She most recently worked as a Research Associate in the Biological Division at the University of Chicago, where she focused on bio-functionalized nanocomposites for biomedical and environmental applications.

As a Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) postdoctoral fellow, Rozhkova conducted research on iron-oxygenases, in particular Nitric Oxide Synthase, mechanisms of catalysis, oxygen activation and electron transfer at Tohoku University's Multidisciplinary Institute for Advanced Materials. Later she continued her research in the field of metalloproteins at the Chemistry Department at Princeton University. She was also a recipient of the Women's Council of the Brain Research Foundation award that was featured in the BRF Newsletter, “Brain Waves.”

A member of the American Chemical Society, Rozhkova has written and collaborated on 23 peer-reviewed publications and has been awarded two patents.

Shevchenko, originally from Belarus, earned her Ph.D in Chemistry in 2003 from the University of Hamburg in Germany. Previously, she worked as a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on bringing together constituents of intrinsically different functionality nanoparticles in order to create novel functional materials with synergistic properties found in neither of the constituents, as well as on nanoparticle design. Her research highlights include synthesis and size control of nanoparticles and their assembling into highly periodic structures, Prior to her work at Lawrence Berkeley, Shevchenko bridged her postdoctoral fellowship between time at the IBM Watson Research Center and Columbia University. Her work was recently featured in Nature as well as Chemical and Engineering News.

She is a member of both the Materials Research Society and the German Physical Chemistry Society and has been published in 32 peer-reviewed publications.

Argonne's Center for Nanoscale Materials is a national resource for the US to foster new research capabilities in nanoscale synthesis and processing, and it plays a key role in the DOE's participation in the interagency National Nanotechnology Initiative. The center's mission includes supporting basic research and advanced instrumentation development for the creation of novel materials, using both top-down and bottom-up self-assembly, that provide new insights at the nanoscale level.  The facility also supports a user program, through peer-reviewed proposals, that is open to academic, industrial, government, and international potential users.

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 Steve McGregor (630/252-5580 or media@anl.gov) at Argonne.