Halas makes Esquire

Halas makes Esquire’s ‘Best & Brightest’ list

BY JADE BOYD
Rice News staff

Rice University nano-optics powerhouse Naomi Halas takes her place alongside 41 rising American stars in Esquire magazine’s ”Best & Brightest 2006” list, which appears in the magazine’s December issue.

HALAS

Halas, the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and professor of chemistry, is one of just a handful of women featured in the article, ”The Women of America: An Esquire Investigation into People Who Are Really Good at What They do.”

Esquire’s annual list showcases the nation’s top minds in the worlds of science, culture, education, public service and the arts. Halas is one of nine honorees in the society category. She made the list for her groundbreaking work in the field of nano-optics and cancer research. Esquire singled out her most famous invention, the metallic particles called nanoshells, for ”their freakish ability to capture light,” and the article goes on to say, ”Nanoshells will soon be helping mankind kill tumors, sniff out chemical weapons and even improve solar power.”

The article also recognized the contributions of Halas’ longtime collaborator in the development of biomedical applications of nanotechnology, Jennifer West, the Isabel C. Cameron Professor of Bioengineering and professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering.

Halas, a world-renowned leader in the field of nanophotonics, joined Rice’s faculty in 1989. She is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Optical Society of America, a recipient of the National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award and a four-time winner of the Rice Engineering Alumni’s Hershel M. Rich Invention Award. She received the Cancer Innovator Award from the congressionally directed medical research programs of the U.S. Department of Defense in 2003.

Halas was nominated for Esquire’s ”Best & Brightest” list by 2005 honoree Amy Myers Jaffe, the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.