Science Meets Beauty: McCormick Student Wins 2012 Scientific Images Contest

Graphene oxide is an excellent conductor. It’s also beautiful. Who knew?

Andrew Koltonow did. For the second year in a row, the McCormick graduate student has won first prize in the Northwestern Scientific Images Contest.

Presented by Science in Society, a Northwestern outreach initiative connecting science to the community, the Northwestern Scientific Images Contest recognizes scientific research images that double as outstanding works of art.

This year twelve winners from across Northwestern were recognized: five top prizes and seven honorable mentions. In all, seven winners were from McCormick.

“Scientific research often produces beautiful images,” the contest website says. “These pieces, judged by a panel of local artists, scientists and community leaders, are representative of real Northwestern research across a wide range of disciplines, including medicine, chemistry, engineering, nanotechnology, and Earth science.”

Koltonow, who works in the labs of Jiaxing Huang, Morris E. Fine Junior Professor in Materials and Manufacturing, and Samuel Stupp, Board of Trustees Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Chemistry and Medicine, captured the eerie winning entry while working with a graphene oxide foam, a conductive material with applications in batteries.

View all the winners of the 2012 Northwestern Scientific Images Contest.