News Assistant
A colorful array of crayon drawings and the fledgling efforts of a child?s first writings greeted me as I entered the sunny, blue carpeted office of Michael Hochella: Virginia?s Outstanding Scientist of 2005 and professor of geochemistry and mineralogy at Virginia Tech. The drawings, Hochella explained, were somewhat dated contributions from his two children, who are now 8 and 12 years old. He?s a very laid-back and modest individual who can?t seem to stop smiling. And he certainly has reason to. On the leading edge of a science that Hochella refers to as nanogeoscience, Hochella is studying the workings of the earth on one of its smallest levels, the nanoparticle. Hochella and his research group are studying how nanoparticles affect the transfer of infectious diseases, the movement of toxic substances and how nanoparticles behave compared to the level we are capable of seeing with the naked eye.
Q: How does it feel to be named Virginia?s Outstanding Scientist?
A: Well I knew I was being nominated, but I never dreamed of actually being selected. And so when (they) tried to call me, I wasn?t in, so they sent me an email. When I came back to my office I checked my email and I was siting at my computer reading this message going ?Am I dreaming??. I?d won awards before from scientific society medals, that sort of thing, but, this was different because those awards are in my particular field and this award was obviously all fields of science. I admire so greatly physicists, chemicists and biologists that I?ve learned so much from. Our scientists don?t win Nobel prizes because there is no such category. So we?re not used to, when all scientists are competing with one another, we?re not used to getting awards. So I was reading this email and I just went numb, and then I had to read it again to make sure I wasn?t dreaming.
Q: What role has Tech played in getting you to where you are today?
A: I was an undergraduate here and I got my masters degree here. And then I went to Stanford to get my Ph.D. and I ended up at Stanford as a research professor for a number of years and I thought I would stay there for the rest of my career because Stanford is Stanford, internationally super famous and I was doing great there. So why would I want to come back to Tech? There were two reasons, one it was best for our children, because we felt this was a better place to buy a home and raise a family then the Bay area. The second reason is that this geoscience department is also internationally recognized for its excellance. Virginia Tech has given me a home that I consider as good as Stanford. And it?s not just this outstanding department, it?s our college and our dean, Lay Nam Chang as the founding dean of our College of Science, and then you just go right up the line through the administration and you see superstars the whole way. These people are amazing and I love working for them. They provide us with healthy encouragement, funding, very pleasant work environment and a desire to want to do well for the university and the state. It?s been a wonderful gift.
Q: What role have your students played?
A: Professors don?t work in a vacuum. Without Ph.D. students and post docs we?re dead, we are dead in the water. I had a wonderful research group at Stanford and the one here is every bit as good or better. I usually have six Ph.D. students at a time and one or two post docs; although we have our own independent research projects we still work together to help each other, to learn from each other, to develop new ideas and pursue them. They have succeeded beyond even my optimistic expectations. They?re very young creative minds and I just try to channel that energy into workable projects, maybe that?s my most important role with them and at the same time they give me wonderful ideas that I pursue in my own projects. The bottom line is, going back to we don?t exist in a vacuum, for me that?s especially true, I would not be very good as an independent, alone scientist. I really thrive in a group setting and my research group provides that very creative setting that makes me want to come to work in the morning as refreshed as ever year after year.
Q: What does your family think of the work you?ve done?
A: My wife has reminded me of this, and she?s right, by the way my wife is a professor in this department as well who?s brighter than I am, she?s reminded me that even though this is attributed to me, it?s just not one person. Science doesn?t work that way. Science works by legions of scientists, all very bright, working very hard and the few people that are lucky like me who are just at the right place at the right time get more credit than they deserve. It?s true that I was one of the first players looking at very small things that control very big things on the earth, I am responsible for naming it, nanogeoscience is my term, but there are many other scientists who have contributed enormously. My wife is the greatest because she provides rationality to the world I live in and as a fellow scientist that I respect as much as any scientist I know, that makes our relationship very special. And we have two young children. We have just a fantastic family life, just the four of us.
Q: Where do you hope nanogeoscience will go from here?
A: Already a lot of labs have taken it on and I hope that many more will because there?s so much that needs to be done and so much we don?t know; we?ve just barely started. I believe one day that so many of the earth?s processes that we see on such a grand scale will be better interpreted and better explained by the understanding of what happens on such small scales with the nanomaterials we know so little about. These particles that we?re looking for now, we find everywhere. And they?ve been there all along, we just never looked for them. Right now, my kind of scientist is rare, but in the future, the kind of science my group does, I predict will be relatively common.