After receiving her doctorate in chemical physics in May, Greta Babakhanova, PhD ’19, was one of 55 young researchers from the United States selected to attend the 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, Germany, this summer. There she spent five days with 42 of the most accomplished and inspiring scientists in the world. This year’s meeting was dedicated to physics and the key topics of cosmology, laser physics and gravitational waves.
Babakhanova recently defended her dissertation, “Elastic Effects in Flexible Dimeric and Elastomer Nematics,” under the direction of Trustees Research Professor Oleg Lavrentovich, PhD, of the Department of Physics and the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute. His lab proved to be the perfect place for her to conduct interdisciplinary research.
She took advantage of fruitful research collaborations with on-campus colleagues in ’s physics and biological sciences departments, as well as international colleagues at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands and the Otto-von-Guericke Universität Magdeburg, in Germany.
Babakhanova plans to broaden her knowledge in the biomedical fields and pursue a career in academia. She recently secured an NRC (National Research Council) postdoctoral fellowship in the Biomaterials Research Group led by Carl Simon Jr., PhD, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland.