annual report 2011 - Office for Research - Northwestern University

Strengthening Collaborations
Nowhere is collaboration and interdisciplinarity more evident than in our 26 University research
centers, which bring together researchers from all our schools.
This fall we celebrated the renewal of the National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for the support
of the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, which was founded in 1960 and is one
of the oldest interdisciplinary research centers in the nation. The grant provides the center $16.2
million over a period of six years. The Materials Research Science and Engineering Center is led
by Monica Olvera de la Cruz, materials science and engineering, who last year was inducted as a
fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Another of our oldest centers is planning for a change of leadership. David Figlio, an education
economist, will become the sixth director of the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) in September
2012. He will succeed IPR’s current director, Fay Lomax Cook, who has been a guiding force for
the institute for the past 16 years. Figlio is a leading national scholar on education policies and
interventions and has explored issues from school accountability and standards to welfare policy
and policy design. His work was showcased in “Excellence in Research” in the 2010 O�ce for
Research Annual Report.
Engaging with Our Community
Increasingly we are sharing our e�orts and successes beyond Northwestern’s campus. One such
e�ort is Science in Society (SiS), an o�ce dedicated to science outreach and public engagement.
Director Michael Kennedy and his team are bringing science to the community and helping our
researchers better communicate the aims and importance of their work to public audiences.
Central to Science in Society’s mission is Science Club, an after-school program for middle school
youth held in partnership with the Boys & Girls Club of Chicago and Chicago Public Schools.
This initiative brings Northwestern graduate students to the club to mentor youth through fun,
hands-on experiments throughout the academic year. A similar program for high school biology
students is ongoing at Evanston Township High School.
In addition to youth-focused initiatives, SiS publishes an educational e-magazine that highlights
Northwestern research, promotes upcoming public events, and provides a real-world publishing
platform for University scientists learning to write about their work for general audiences. The
annual SiS images contest, “Capturing the Beauty of Science,” draws research-based images from
across the University, with winners showcased online and at venues throughout the Chicago area.
See this year’s winning images on pages 24-27.
Agents for Change
Operating behind the scenes is a Northwestern system that will support possible breakthroughs
in health care and healthcare delivery. It is the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW), part of the
Northwestern University Biomedical Informatics Center (NUBIC), directed by Justin Starren,
preventive medicine. The EDW contains a database of clinical information without patient
identi�ers that can be shared among the University’s clinical partners, including the hospital and
the faculty foundation. These data help facilitate research and operational reporting. In �scal
Vice President’s Letter | Annual Report 2011 5