Öztürk Wins 2017 Sidhu Award

Oct 12 2017

Hande Öztürk (MSE Ph.D. 2015, from Prof. I.C. Noyan's group) was selected to receive the 2017 Sidhu Award.

John P. Rose, the President of the Pittsburgh Diffraction Society, wrote, "The award, in memory of Professor Surhain S. Sidhu, honors significant contributions to the science of crystallography and/or diffraction by a scientist in the early stage of their career . . . Based on the strong nomination and the impressive credentials on your CV, the award decision was made without hesitation. You are to be commended for the scientific impact you have made at this stage of your career with your contributions to the fundamental understanding of diffraction from nanoparticles."

Dr. Öztürk's award consists of a certificate and $5,000 cash prize, which will be presented at the 75th Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference held the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Campus from October 19 – 21, 2017. Dr. Öztürk will present a lecture on her research related to the award on October 20th from 5:30 to 6:30 PM, which will be live streamed on YouTube.

A native of Turkey, Dr. Öztürk graduated from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul with Physics and Mechanical Engineering degrees and then moved to the United States for her graduate studies. She obtained her Master’s degree from Boston University, Mechanical Engineering Department and moved to Columbia University for her doctoral work. Upon defending her thesis supervised by Prof. I.C. Noyan and titled ‘Computational Analysis of Diffraction from Ideal Crystalline Nanoparticles’ in 2015, she was awarded her Ph.D. degree. Since 2016, she has been working at the National Synchrotron Light Source II at Brookhaven National Laboratory as a postdoctoral research associate. Her research interests include characterization of nanocrystalline materials by diffractive techniques and phase retrieval methods from diffraction data.

This award honors the memory of Professor Surain S. Sidhu, who while Professor of Physics and Director of the X-ray Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh was a founder of the Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference in 1943. Later, Professor Sidhu moved to Argonne National Laboratory, where he pioneered the use of the null matrix technique in neutron diffraction. This involves choosing isotopes of an element in the proportion that gives a zero net coherent scattering factor. The procedure has been widely used for studying biological materials in which the isotopic ratio of hydrogen to deuterium is appropriately adjusted.

The currently biennial award recognizes an outstanding contribution to crystallographic or diffraction research by a young investigator whose doctoral degree was conferred within six years before the award date. (The 75th Annual Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference Program, 2017)

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