Student Chemist Jamie Link Develops Formula for Early Success

By Paul Mueller | October 25, 2004

Among her many other duties, Chancellor Marye Anne Fox works hard to increase the numbers of women in science. She explains the opportunities and rewards to girls and young women from grade schools to grad schools across the nation.

Now, the chancellor has another "link" in her persuasive chain of positive examples. Jamie Link, a graduate student in chemistry and biochemistry at UCSD, is among 100 of the world's top young innovators, as selected by MIT's Technology Review magazine — one of 30 women so honored and, at 26, the youngest member of the prestigious group.

Link also won, in 2003, the $50,000 grand prize in the Collegiate Inventors Competition for developing "smart dust" sensors, tiny silicon chips that can be used for environmental testing, medical diagnostics and research, drug delivery and many other commercial, medical and scientific applications.

Like the chancellor whose cause she now illustrates, Link also has ties to North Carolina. (Fox served as chancellor at NC State before coming to UCSD.) She was born in Greensboro, N.C., and attended Grimsley High School there before heading to Princeton for her undergraduate degree in chemistry, which she earned in 2000.

Her Tar Heel parents, Albert and Carol Link, still live there. Her brother, Kevin, is a graduate of Wake Forest University and works in Washington, D.C.

Like the chancellor, too, Link is interested in science policy. "I've seen the necessity for interdisciplinary collaboration in my work as a materials scientist," she says, "and from my experience doing fieldwork within a community in Baja. I also had the benefit of serving as a Fellow of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, where I was impressed by the vertical integration of ideas. Each of these experiences has allowed me to gain insight into what's involved at different stages of implementing a new technology, and has contributed to my desire to move toward science policy."

The technology she developed, Link says, is a relatively simple one. She explains it to nonscientists this way: "The physical structure of each tiny sensor is similar to many structures found in nature - such as a butterfly wing or a beetle shell - and reflects color in the same way. The real challenge comes in doing chemistry on these sensors so that changes in the colors give you very specific information about what's in the environment."

A piano player, a swimmer and an occasional potter, Link was lured to UCSD by the chance to work with Dr. Michael Sailor, now her graduate adviser, and the state's sunny reputation.

"One of the first things I did when I got here was buy a surfboard," she says. "I'm a terrible surfer, but I love the ocean." She's also enthusiastic about her research and the people she works with. "It's a great group," she says. "Really bright people from many different fields - optics, computing, chemistry, materials science, electrical engineering - are helping us find real-world applications for the sensor chips. Interacting with all these different people makes the work more fun."

Interested in science and mathematics as a girl, Link is now immersed in the fields of chemistry and biochemistry, and 60-hour weeks are not uncommon. "The experiments drive your schedule," she says. "When things are working in the lab, you have to see them through."

The "smart dust" sensors have already been tested in one of Mexico's bays, used to detect pollutants, and her research team continues to develop variants of the micron-sized chips for many different purposes.

Link is fascinated by the possibility of nanoscale "dust," but can already see certain limitations. "There's always a trade-off when you begin to translate basic ideas into practical applications," she says. "One of the virtues of our tiny chips is their visible change of color in response to the substance we want to detect, for example. That advantage might be lost with nanoscale particles. It's an interesting avenue to investigate."

Interesting avenues, bright and diverse teammates, well-equipped labs, mentors to guide a young scientist's progress, the possibility of national and international recognition - Jamie Link's account of her life as a young scientist would surely inspire other eager, inquisitive children now sitting in classrooms.

As Chancellor Fox noted in marking Link's accomplishments, "Jamie and the 30 other women recognized for this award serve as powerful reminders that our nation needs to do more to encourage women to pursue careers in science and technology. With promising young innovators such as Jamie, the future of our nation's technological enterprise and economy has no limits."