University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Luisa Whittaker was Sarbajit Banerjee’s very first doctoral student at UB. She recently won the Materials Research Society’s Graduate Student Gold Award—the highest honor a student can receive in recognition of materials research and one that Banerjee himself won as a doctoral student. Photo: DOUGLAS LEVERE

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By CHARLOTTE HSU

Published: December 8, 2011

A student’s success is always a point of pride for a mentor. But for Sarbajit Banerjee, assistant professor of chemistry, following PhD student Luisa Whittaker’s accomplishments has been particularly gratifying.

Whittaker, who won the Materials Research Society’s Graduate Student Gold Award last week, was Banerjee’s very first doctoral student at UB.

Both joined the university in 2007—Whittaker as a Fulbright scholar from Panama, Banerjee as a young researcher in his first tenure-track faculty job.

“I am really, really proud,” Banerjee said after learning that Whittaker had won the Gold Award, which he described as the highest honor a student can receive in recognition of materials research. “It is incredible that she has won this award. The award is a testament to her incredible intellect and creativity, as well as her remarkable work ethic.”

Whittaker, who completed her doctorate in chemistry this year, is now a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University.

During her time at UB, she worked closely with Banerjee to build up a successful laboratory focusing on nanomaterials research with real-world applications.

Two major areas of investigation are graphene, a nanomaterial with utility in conductive inks and other products, and vanadium oxide, a material that could one day find utility in energy-efficient “smart” windows that reflect heat only on hot days.

Whittaker’s dissertation research focused on the latter; as a member of Banerjee’s interdisciplinary research team, she helped demonstrate that preparing vanadium oxide as a nanomaterial instead of in bulk gave it properties that could be useful in smart windows and ultrafast microelectronics.

The work positioned her as one of her field’s most promising young researchers, landing her seven lead-author papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Whittaker, whose work was partially supported by Banerjee’s National Science Foundation CAREER grant, credits her advisor for helping her succeed. His enthusiasm about the science they were doing was contagious, she said. “If you have a mentor who is excited about research results, then you’re excited, too.”

For Banerjee, watching Whittaker grow as a researcher has been an incredible experience.

Back in 2002, as a doctoral student at Stony Brook University, Banerjee won the Materials Research Society’s Graduate Student Gold Award for his work on the surface chemistry of carbon nanotubes. He knows how much the recognition means.

The award is the highest honor that the Materials Research Society (MRS) bestows on graduate students, and Whittaker was one of only six graduate researchers to receive the honor at the 2011 MRS’ fall meeting last week. Judges selected her from a pool of 195 applicants.

With Whittaker now launching her own career, Banerjee is turning his attention to training the next generation of scientists.

Christopher Partridge, another mentee, studied vanadium bronzes in Banerjee’s lab and recently was awarded a National Research Council postdoctoral fellowship to pursue research at the Naval Research Laboratory. Another three students are nearing completion of their PhDs.

“The recognition that my students are earning is deeply satisfying. It is an incredible experience to see them transform from being tentative beginners in the lab to confident and independent researchers that are putting the lessons they learned at UB to great use,” Banerjee said.