Announcing the 2023 Joanna Fowler Award Winners
The two winning recipients are Sha Tan and Jacy Conrad.
July 14, 2023
By Sanjaya Senanayake and Jessica Gasparik
Jacy Conrad (left) and Sha Tan
The Chemistry Division at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Brookhaven Women in Science (BWIS) are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2023 Joanna Fowler Award in the Chemical and Biochemical Sciences.
The two winning recipients as selected by the Fowler Award Committee are Sha Tan and Jacy Conrad, who will each receive a $3,000 award. Both scientists research clean energy solutions and utilize unique Lab facilities to aid their research. The committee was impressed by their academic performance, outreach and mentoring activities, and impact on Brookhaven Lab. They will be recognized at a hybrid ceremony later this summer on a date to be announced.
The Joanna Fowler Award in the Chemical and Biochemical Sciences recognizes an outstanding early career (graduate student or postdoctoral) woman scientist who has advanced the chemical or biochemical sciences through research conducted at, or in collaboration, with Brookhaven Lab. The award recognizes one or more young women scientists annually for work conducted while she is/was a graduate student or a postdoctoral research associate who has collaborated with Brookhaven scientists; or worked at Brookhaven as a Lab-funded graduate student or Research Associate; or was a user at a Brookhaven user facility.
Joanna S. Fowler is a former member of the Lab’s Chemistry, Medical, and Biology Departments (1969-2014) and former leader of Brookhaven Lab’s Radiotracer Chemistry, Instrumentation, and Biological Imaging Program. Fowler was a leader in developing radiotracers for biomedical imaging. She pioneered the application of radiotracers for noninvasive brain imaging in research that was aimed at understanding the mechanisms behind addiction. Among her accomplishments, she played a leading role in the development and use of fluorine-18-labeled 2-deoxy-2-fluoro-D-glucose (FDG) as a radiotracer for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. FDG has since become a mainstay of PET imaging in medicine, particularly for cancer diagnosis. Today, Fowler’s many successes serve as an exemplary model for other young scientists. More about Joanna Fowler.
The award this year is funded by the Chemistry Division and the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), a DOE Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven Lab. It is because of their generous support that two awards are possible this year, with considerable volunteer efforts taken to raise funds and administer the award.
About the 2023 Recipients
Sha Tan is a postdoctoral research associate in the Electrochemical Energy Storage Group in the Chemistry Division and is supervised by Enyuan Hu. She obtained her Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from Stony Brook University in 2022 with a dissertation titled “Understand the Fundamental Mechanism of Interphase Optimization via Electrolyte Engineering for Lithium Batteries.” For her postdoctoral research, she continues to work on developing high-performance, low-cost electrolytes for various battery systems including lithium metal, lithium-sulfur, and solid-state batteries. She is an active and experienced user of NSLS-II, taking advantage of its world-class capabilities in x-ray scattering, imaging, and spectroscopy to understand the fundamental mechanisms governing energy storage and design of batteries. She aims to combine her experience in both the fundamental and the applied aspects of battery research to make unique contributions to the battery community.
Tan has been an active reviewer for many scientific journals and served as a judge for Brookhaven Lab’s Elementary School Science Fair for many years. She enjoys sharing her passion for science, knowledge, and experience about research by serving as a mentor for younger individuals. She has mentored several high school and undergraduate students in the past several years.
Jacy Conrad hails from Nova Scotia, Canada, with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry and physics from Dalhousie University, and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Guelph. She was a Russell L. Heath Distinguished Postdoctoral Researcher at the time of this award, but is now a staff scientist at the Center for Radiation Chemistry Research at Idaho National Laboratory. Her research interests are in understanding how radiolytic processes result in the degradation of a variety of materials, solutes, and solutions. Jacy determines the fundamental radiation-induced process that dictate the reactivity, solubility, speciation, and complexation of chemical species in a given system using a variety of experimental techniques, including picosecond pulsed electron radiolysis at the Lab’s Laser Electron Accelerator Facility.
Conrad uses these experimental data as inputs into kinetic computer models to predict the behavior of chemical species under irradiation. In-depth knowledge of these processes is integral for evaluating the performance of materials involved in a nuclear fuel cycle, e.g., corrosion of nuclear reactor materials, extent of extraction in used nuclear fuel reprocessing systems, and partitioning of materials in nuclear waste storage. She also serves as a member of the International Association of the Properties of Water and Steam (IAPWS) Physical Chemistry of Aqueous Systems Committee, the IAPWS U.S. National Committee, and the Miller Trust Committee.
Acknowledgments
The Chemistry Division and BWIS thank the Fowler Award Review Committee members for their time and dedication in selecting this year’s award recipients. The committee members are Ira Waluyo (NSLS-II), Elspeth McSweeney (Energy & Photon Sciences Directorate), Rebecca Trojanowski (Interdisciplinary Science Department), Sooyeon Hwang (Center for Functional Nanomaterials), Judy Spencer (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Office), Megan Magrum (Environment, Safety, and Health Directorate/BWIS), Linda Sallustio (Chemistry), and Jantana Blanford (Biology Department).
BWIS is a nonprofit organization that supports and encourages the advancement of women in science and is open to all individuals. The organization is funded by Brookhaven Science Associates.
Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov.
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