MIT professor Angela Belcher, one of the world’s leading nanotechnology experts, has been named the recipient of this year’s $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, which honors an outstanding inventor dedicated to improving the world through technological invention.She's very, very bright: 2004 MacArthur Fellowship (the "genius grant") and a whole sack full of other awards and prizes.
“It feels fantastic,” says Belcher, the W.M. Keck Professor of Energy at MIT and a faculty member at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. “There’s been so many great people who have won it in the past. I feel very fortunate.”
Belcher, who heads up the Biomolecular Materials Group at MIT, draws her scientific inspiration from nature’s ability to create materials — such as a snail’s ability to grow its shell. In the lab, she combines organic and inorganic materials to create novel electronic materials for a variety of applications, such as solar cells, fuel, environmentally friendly batteries and medical diagnostics, among other things.
“Angela Belcher is an extraordinary inventor,” says Joshua Schuler, executive director of the Lemelson-MIT Program. “She has taken a single idea and applied it to develop a remarkable portfolio of inventions that span a multitude of industries and will ultimately benefit business, society and the environment.” ...MORE
Material Sciences baby!
