2023 Voiland College Lectureship by Alexandra Navrotsky – “A Career in Thermodynamics”
About the event
A Career in Thermodynamics
Alexandra Navrotsky, Regents Professor, Arizona State University
Abstract
I take this opportunity to present my science in the context of other scientific and societal events of the past five decades. In geochemistry, I have utilized high-temperature oxide melt solution calorimetry to provide thermodynamic data and, more importantly, scientific insights into the microscopic sources of stability and metastability in spinels, high-pressure minerals, silicate glasses and melts, hydrous minerals, and nanomaterials. In materials science, I have studied the thermodynamics of ceramic, nuclear, and energy-related materials. Often the geochemical and materials projects are overlapping and synergistic. In this talk, I highlight examples of my findings, roughly one per decade, that proved long-lived and transformational. However, my most important “product” may be the many students, postdocs, and colleagues who have influenced me and been influenced by my ideas. I have seen the societal reasons and patterns for doing science evolve. Geochemistry is now more exciting than ever, especially in the broader planetary context, while materials science is rapidly discovering new materials for applications in energy and chemical engineering which require fundamental understanding. Improvements in experimental and computational approaches promise future advances on both fundamental and applied fronts; thermodynamics remaining crucial to both science and technology.
Biography
Alexandra Navrotsky is a Regents Professor in the School of Molecular Sciences and the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy and Affiliated Faculty Member of the School of Earth and Space Exploration. She is also the Director of the Navrotsky Eyring Center for Materials of the Universe. Alexandra Navrotsky was educated at the Bronx High School of Science and the University of Chicago (B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in physical chemistry). After postdoctoral work in Germany and at Penn State University, she joined the faculty in chemistry at Arizona State University, where she remained until her move to the Department of Geological and Geophysical Sciences at Princeton University in 1985. She chaired that department from 1988 to 1991 and was active in the Princeton Materials Institute. In 1997, she became an interdisciplinary professor of ceramic, earth, and environmental materials chemistry at the University of California, Davis and was appointed Edward Roessler Chair in Mathematical and Physical Sciences in 2001. She served as interim dean of the University of California, Davis, College of Letters and Sciences Department of Mathematical and Physical Sciences from 2013 to 2017. She organized the NEAT (Nano and New Materials in Energy, the Environment, Agriculture, and Technology) research group in 2002 and has directed the Peter A. Rock Thermochemistry Laboratory since her arrival in 1997. Two of her former Ph.D. students at UC Davis are current WSU faculty, Di Wu in the Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, and Xiaofeng Guo in the Department of Chemistry. Both Wu and Guo are recently tenured and promoted to the rank of associate professor.
Research Interests
Her research interests have centered on relating microscopic features of structure and bonding to macroscopic thermodynamic behavior in minerals, ceramics, and other complex materials. She has made major contributions to both mineralogy/geochemistry and to solid-state chemistry/materials science in the fields of ceramics, mantle mineralogy, deep earth geophysics, melt and glass science, nanomaterials, and porous materials. She has developed unique high-temperature calorimetric techniques and instruments and her laboratory at ASU collaborates with scientists all over the world.
Honors and Awards
Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (1973), American Geophysical Union Fellow (1988), Geochemical Society Fellow (1997), Member of National Academy of Sciences (1993), Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth Science (2002), Fellow of The Mineralogical Society (2004), Urey Medal (2004), Spriggs Phase Equilibria Award (2005), Roebling Medal (2009), Member of the American Philosophical Society (2011), Victor M. Goldschmidt Award (2016), W. David Kingery Award (2016), Science Professional Member of World Academy of Ceramics (2017).
Recently, a newly discovered mineral K2Na10(UO2)3(SO4)9·2H2O was named Navrotskyite in her honor.
Major Gift to WSU
Prof. Navrotsky made a major gift of $1.5 million in total to WSU to establish the Alexandra Navrotsky Institute for Experimental Thermodynamics (AlexInstitute). The AlexInstitute is part of the Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering.