In 2007, SES Research began funding the Young Investigator Award in the ECS Fullerenes, Nanotubes, and Carbon Nanostructures Division. SES offers this award with the Electrochemical Society. It celebrates FNCN scientists who are likely to continue their research throughout their careers. We are pleased to announce that this year’s recipient is Gözde S. Demirer, Ph.D.
Earning the Award
Dr. Demirer’s Work
Dr. Demirer earned the Young Investigator Award in recognition of her research into nanotechnology, particularly for its applications in Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat technology. Recently, she has conducted research into increasing plants’ nutritional value through genetic modifications. She also has experience using CRISPR technology and nanocarbons to make plants more resistant to diseases. These accomplishments are critical contributions to her field and society as a whole because they help secure a stable food supply.
In addition to her research, Dr. Demirer has proven her dedication to helping the next generation learn about genetic editing and nanotechnology. She taught classes during her doctoral studies and plans to be a professor after completing her fellowship. Her willingness to teach demonstrates her awareness of her work’s importance and a desire to help others.
Requirements and Benefits
SES Research and the ECS Society offer the Young Investigator’s Award approximately every other year. To be eligible, researchers must have conducted extensive research involving nanocarbon. They also must contribute in some way to this field’s development. Finally, they must be no older than 38 by September 1, which is the nomination deadline.
Academic advisors or research supervisors who want to nominate young researchers must submit letters of recommendation. They should also include information about the nominee’s research, publications, and education. Then, the award committees for each division, which include three or more experts in that field, review the nominations.
Recipients of the Young Investigator’s Award receive $500 and free admittance to the spring ECS gathering. At this meeting, they present their research to ECS members in their division. Past recipients in Dr. Demirer’s division include Markita Landry, Michael Arnold, Jiayan Luo, Aurelio Mateo-Alonso, Mark C. Hersam, and Nikhil Koratkar.
Exploring Dr. Demirer’s Education
Undergraduate Education
Dr. Demirer received her bachelor’s degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering in 2015 at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey. During this time, she completed Stanford’s Summer International Honors Program in 2013 and studied abroad at the University of Pennsylvania in 2014. She worked as a research assistant in the Kizilel Lab at Koç University throughout her undergraduate studies on nanomaterials’ effectiveness as cancer treatments. During her summers in Turkey, she worked as an intern at ISP in 2013 and Organik Kimya in 2014.
CRISPR technology dates to 1987, but scientists did not begin using it with nanomaterials until 2017. As a result, Dr. Demirer researched nanomaterials during her undergraduate career, but her work with gene editing came later.
Graduate and Postgraduate Education
After completing her bachelor’s degree, Dr. Demirer moved to the United States. She recently earned her doctorate in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. She studied there between 2015 and 2020, working in the Landry Lab. Her specialties included using nanomaterials to adjust plant cells’ contents and structure and altering plant genetics.
While Dr. Demirer completed her Ph.D., she spent one year as a graduate student instructor at UC Berkeley’s College of Chemistry. From 2016-2017, she taught undergraduate engineering classes related to nanotechnology, thermodynamics, and biotechnology.
Since her graduation in August 2020, Dr. Demirer has worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Davis. Through this position, she works in the Department of Plant Biology and Genome Center at the Brady Lab. Continuing and focusing her work at the doctoral level, Dr. Demirer now studies nanocarbon applications for genetic editing in tomatoes.
Getting a Glimpse of What’s Next for Dr. Demirer
Dr. Demirer has been offered a position as an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. She will take on this post in the summer of 2022, once her postdoctoral fellowship ends.
To learn more about Dr. Demirer’s awards, work history, and research, visit her LinkedIn page or check out her Twitter account. To hear more about SES Research’s efforts to support young researchers, reach out to us on our website.
Announcing Dr. Gödze Demirer’s SES Research Young Investigator Award | SES Research – Houston, TX