Nanoscape: Exploring the Frontiers Ahead

What can an anthropologist teach us about designing better nanotechnology? Northwestern University Anthropology  professor Sera Young has dedicated her career to understanding how people experience water insecurity, looking beyond whether water is available to questions of access, safety, reliability and trust. In this episode, Young talks about her research that is helping shape rapid, at-home water diagnostics that can detect contaminants like lead, showing why the human experience is essential to designing technology that works in the real world.
Guest: Sera Young, PhD,  Professor of Anthropology & Global Health, Northwestern University, Member of IIN
Hosts: Seth Zimmerman, associate director of marketing and communications, IIN, and Erin Spain, MS, podcaster and science communicator

How do you design a medicine that can find the right cells in the body, navigating the body's natural defenses like the blood-brain barrier? Biomedical engineer Emily Day  explains how nanotechnology is making drug delivery more precise by helping therapies navigate the body's natural barriers, target disease with greater accuracy, and reduce side effects. She also explores how bio-inspired nanoparticles, AI, and advances in diagnostics could shape the next generation of medicine. 
Guest: Emily Day, PhD, Professor, Biomedical Engineering, University of Delaware
Hosts: Seth Zimmerman, associate director of marketing and communications, IIN, and Erin Spain, MS, podcaster and science communicator

What does the soft side of nanotechnology look like? Todd Emrick, professor of polymer science and engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, explains how polymers are transforming everything from medical devices and electronics to next-generation sustainable materials, and why some of nanotechnology's biggest breakthroughs happen at the interface between soft and hard materials.
Guest: Todd Emrick, Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Hosts: Seth Zimmerman, associate director of marketing and communications, IIN, and Erin Spain, MS, podcaster and science communicator

Electrons move so quickly that, until recently, their motion was impossible to observe. In this episode, James Gaynor, an assistant professor of chemistry at Northwestern University and member of the International Institute for Nanotechnology, takes listeners inside the race to watch electrons move in real time. Using ultrafast laser tools that capture events lasting mere attoseconds, Gaynor's lab is uncovering the earliest moments of how light interacts with matter. He explains how this fundamental research could one day help scientists design faster electronics, more efficient energy technologies, and advanced bioelectronic devices by understanding chemistry at its beginning.
Guest: James D. Gaynor, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry
Hosts: Seth Zimmerman, Associate Director of Marketing and Communications, IIN and Erin Spain, MS, Podcaster and Science Communicator

In honor of Star Wars Day, this episode explores futuristic light technologies seen in science fiction—like invisibility cloaks or powerful directed energy— and how far away we are from such innovations. In this episode, Matt Jones, a chemist at Rice University and Northwestern alum, explains how scientists are learning to control light by engineering materials at the nanoscale and why when materials are reduced to billionths of a meter, they begin to exhibit entirely new optical properties—from color-changing nanoparticles to structures that interact with light in unexpected ways. The conversation explores the emerging field of metamaterials and how curiosity-driven, fundamental science lays the groundwork for innovations that may shape the future.