When I was eighteen I wanted to be … a mechanical engineer.
The biggest challenge facing scientists is … nonlinearity.
I am waiting for the day when someone will discover … a hybrid of a plant a
nd an animal that can create its own energy by photosynthesis and move aroun
d.
Young people should study chemistry because … it is the foundation for stud
ying other subjects in science, engineering, and medicine.
Looking back over my career, I … would like to say “thanks” to those who
have said “no” to me from time to time.
My science “heroes” are … Boltzmann, Einstein, Bohr, Ostwald, and Pauling
.
The most significant historic event of the past 100 years was … the inventi
on of the internet.
My favorite quote is … “To study without thinking is futile, to think with
out studying is dangerous” by Confucius.
I admire … alchemists for their courage and endless effort to try new thing
s without knowing much about them.
My favorite way to spend a holiday is … cleaning my desk.
If I had one year of paid leave I would … like to spend some time in an imm
unology lab.
My favorite molecule is … fullerene or buckyball.
The most important thing I learned from my students is … to approach the sa
me experiment from different angles.
My motto is … “gold will always shine, no matter where it is placed”.
Has your approach to publishing your results changed since the start of your
career?
Not at all! I was fortunate to spend four years with Prof. George Whitesides
at Harvard University, where I learned the most important lesson about doin
g research and publishing papers. The first thing I was told by him upon joi
ning his group was: “interesting and unpublished” is equivalent to “nonex
istent”. The next thing I received was a handout about how to write a paper
efficiently from scratch in the Whitesides group (see Adv. Mater.2004, 16,
1375–1377). I followed the instructions while I was in his group and I was
able to produce roughly 15 first-author papers in four years. When I started
my own independent career, I also asked the members of my group to follow t
he same approach and that tradition has never changed.
What do you think the future holds for your field of research?
My research centers on the development of chemistry, physics, materials scie
nce, and technological applications related to nanocrystals—a novel class o
f materials whose building blocks have at least one dimension in the range o
f 1–100nm. On the fundamental side, there is still a lot that needs to
be learned about their synthesis, in particular, the evolution from atomic s
pecies to nuclei and then seeds. On the practical side, we still need to dem
onstrate some killer applications that have a profound impact on society one
way or the other; for example, a better way for diagnosing and/or treating
a disease, a cleaner and more sustainable source of energy, or a greener rou
te to a product.
