Argonne researcher wins Hispanic achievement award
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ARGONNE, Ill. (Oct. 12, 2006) — Rex E. Gerald, II, a chemical physicist in
the Chemical Engineering Division of
the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, has received
the 2006 Outstanding Technical Achievement Award from the Hispanic Engineer
National Achievement Award Corporation (HENAAC).
The award, presented Friday in ceremonies in Los Angeles, recognizes unique
research that has a high impact on humankind, patents, publications, potential
as a role model and involvement with the Hispanic community.
Gerald's scientific work deals with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), which
is the absorption of electromagnetic radiation at a given frequency by a nucleus
with nonzero spin in an external magnetic field. With nonzero spin, the nucleus
behaves like a small magnet.
“NMR allows you to learn something about the architecture of a molecule,” Gerald
said. Frequently NMR spectroscopy is used when a researcher has created a substance
and wants to verify that it is the substance he or she intended to create.
The technique can clearly identify a given group of atoms and other atoms or
groups surrounding it.
The magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) used in medicine is based on NMR, and
just as bringing metal into an MRI scanner has disastrous consequences, it
was thought that NMR could not be used to image metallic objects. However,
Gerald wanted a way to look inside a battery and get information about its
performance without taking the battery apart. This information would be useful
for designing better lithium batteries that would be robust enough for electric
cars.
“The solution was to turn the problem around and make the metal components
of the battery the tools for NMR,” Gerald said. The resulting invention, the
Argonne Coin Cell NMR/MRI Imager, was one of the reasons why Gerald was selected
for the HENAAC award.
Students are commonly told that NMR was discovered instantaneously and simultaneously
by two teams at Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in the late 1940s. Gerald, who has written an encyclopedia article on the topic,
said the actual story is that the MIT and Stanford discoveries were the culmination
of work done by Isidor Rabi and C.J. Gorter in the preceding decade. Gorter
came very close to the ultimate discovery, but was thwarted because he chose
an unusually difficult substance to work with. A student of Rabi's was on the
MIT team that eventually won a Nobel Prize in 1952.
Gerald shares this version of the story to inspire his student interns, who
he requires — above and beyond Argonne's general requirements for student interns — to
present work at an international conference, write a report for publication
in a peer-reviewed journal and write an invention report and patent application,
all during a 10-week internship. He finds that stories emphasizing spontaneous
flashes of insight as the sole source of inventions can be discouraging to
potential inventors.
“If you're waiting around for that light bulb to turn on, you'll be very anxious,” Gerald
said. “The idea, at least one that has merit, does not come out of thin air.”
Most of the interns Gerald has supervised since he began working at Argonne
in 1994 have been undergraduates, many with only one or two years of college
under their belts. However, all have risen to the unusual challenge, because
Gerald does not permit them to fail.
“It's not enough to work hard and do a good job and say, ‘My project didn't
work out,'” Gerald said. “You have to make it work!”
He describes the goal of his rigorous yet holistic style of supervising interns
as a “transformation of the human spirit.”
“You don't ever have to do NMR again. You can be an absolutely wonderful leader
in your family or a company or whatever, and that's the desired outcome. The
science just turns out to provide an excellent vehicle,” Gerald said.
Gerald said he still keeps in touch with some former students, and that two
of them supported his nomination for the HENAAC award.
Gerald was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. His father is Texan and his
mother, of Spanish and Italian heritage, is a Mexican citizen. From kindergarten
through sixth grade, he and his three siblings commuted across the border every
day to attend a Montessori school in Mexico. He credits the Montessori program's
emphasis on self-directed learning for his creative approach to science. Also
as a result of his studies in Mexico, he speaks Spanish fluently, and he said
his familiarity with the culture there helps him bond with Hispanic students
he has supervised.
Just as he sees understanding the history of NMR as vital to understanding
the process of scientific discovery, Gerald finds that people's lives, including
his own, are shaped by their history.
“You see that it's not so much happenstance,” Gerald said. “There's a lot
that goes into preparing you for that position.”
Argonne National Laboratory seeks 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.
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