Katja C. Nowack, assistant professor of physics in Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences, has been selected by the Department of Energy (DOE) to receive $750,000 for research over five years as part of DOE’s Early Career Research Program for her research project, “Magnetic Imaging of Topological Phases of Matter.”
She is one of 49 scientists chosen for the grant, now in its seventh year, which intends to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce by supporting exceptional researchers during their early career years.
Nowack joined the Cornell faculty in January 2015. Her research group is building a set of low-temperature scanning platforms to implement a toolbox of scanning probes that will provide greater understanding of novel quantum materials. Before coming to Cornell, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University (2011-14) and Delft University of Technology, Netherlands (2010-11), where she received a Ph.D. in physics in 2009.
Said Cherry Murray, director of DOE’s Office of Science: “We invest in promising young researchers early in their careers to support lifelong discovery science to fuel the nation’s innovation system. We are proud of the accomplishments these young scientists already have made, and look forward to following their achievements in years to come.”
Under the program, university-based researchers receive at least $150,000 per year to cover summer salary and research expenses. To be eligible, a researcher must be an untenured, tenure-track assistant or associate professor at a U.S. academic institution or a full-time employee at a DOE national laboratory, who received a Ph.D. within the past 10 years.
