Northwestern Engineering’s Cécile Chazot has received a US Department of Energy (DOE) Early Career Research Award, an honor recognizing next-generation STEM leaders poised to solidify the United States’ role as the driver of science and innovation around the world.
Chazot, the Julia Weertman Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering, has received the award to advance the development of a new class of sustainable energy materials. Her project, “Conductive Chiroptical Polysaccharides for Dynamic Infrared Electro-Reflectivity,” will harness naturally occurring, sugar-based molecules found in plants, fungi, and crustacean shells, which spontaneously form helical structures at extremely small scales and interact with light in distinctive ways. By adding electrically conductive groups to these biopolymers, Chazot aims to create materials that can carry charge and respond to electrical currents.
This work could lead to materials that actively control their reflection and absorption of light and radiative heat in response to changing environmental conditions, enabling the development of dynamic, energy-efficient technologies for buildings, vehicles, and other applications.
“This project represents a bold step toward redefining what biopolymers can do,” Chazot said. “In my lab, we are passionate about pushing the boundaries of natural materials to create entirely new functionalities, and this work is a perfect example of this mission.”
The Early Career Research Award project supports the research of outstanding scientists early in their careers. To qualify for the program, applicants must be either untenured, tenure-track assistant or associate professors at US institutions, or full-time employees at a DOE national laboratory or Office of Science user facility who earned their doctorate within the past 10 years.
Chazot’s research centers on developing sustainable approaches to manufacturing and recycling polymeric materials. Her group works across a range of areas—including fiber-based materials, biopolymers, large-scale processing, structural color, and green chemistry—combining fundamental studies of material behavior with applied research aimed at real-world industrial use.