Alumni Spotlight
Jill Millstone earned her B.S. in Chemistry and English from Carnegie Mellon University and her Ph.D. in Materials Chemistry at Northwestern University under Prof. Chad Mirkin. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at UC Berkeley, she joined the University of Pittsburgh in 2011, where her research centers on precise nanoparticle synthesis that integrates optical, electronic, mechanical, and self-assembly properties into single architectures. Millstone’s work provides mechanistic insight while producing tailored materials for real-world applications. She has received an NSF CAREER Award, Cottrell Scholar Award, and Unilever Award, and currently serves as Associate Editor of ACS Nano.
Looking back on your time in the Mirkin Group, is there a moment—big or small—that really captures what it was like to be part of that team?
It is hard to explain how lucky and grateful I feel to have been a part of the Mirkin group, especially during those years. One thing that was a special part of that team (and I think is still today) is that the mentoring relationships between senior students, post-docs, and junior students was very strong. Chad recognizes, values, and credits both mentors and mentees. During my first year in the group, I was working primarily with a post-doc, Sung-ho Park (now at Yonsei University). I had been trying and failing at a particular set of experiments, like we all do in grad school, but I had finally gotten some traction one fortuitous afternoon. I thought we’d then try to repeat everything the next day, and if it went well, it could be a good first result. When I talked this through with Sung-ho, he told me, “No.” I was surprised, but he repeated to me what I now know is an old adage: if things are working in the lab, you stay in the lab. At that time, we didn’t have all the equipment we needed in the group, so we had to go to a shared facility. At 8pm, Sung-ho loaded up a cart with one of our centrifuges, a bunch of other materials, and we went over to the spectrometer (somewhere in Cook, I think). So many things about that experience stuck with me: enthusiasm for scientific discovery, the dash of experienced superstition, the caring not only for the experiment but for me as a developing scientist – Sung-ho could have left, but he did all the experiments with me late into the evening. Watching him gather the things we need to do our analysis emphasized to me that you do what it takes to answer the scientific questions you have, and that being a mentor is more than a consultant. This and so many other experiences in the group, showed me how graduate school gives you both the freedom and the tools to pursue your passions, and how scientific discovery can be infused with rigor and joy at the same time.
In what ways did your time in the Department change how you think as a scientist—and how do you see that influence show up in your work today?
The Department contributed to all aspects of how I think about and do science today. One example that stands out is the perspective I gained about scientific collaborations. Collaborations were nurtured and encouraged at all levels, from undergraduates to senior faculty. By working together, the breadth and impact of the work being done was amplified enormously. It drove home to me that when you want to find actual answers to important questions, you’re thinking about how to do the best science, with the most knowledgeable people. Overemphasis on individual contributions is for people chasing something other than real solutions.
What was it like to return to Northwestern as the James A. Ibers Lecturer? Did it feel different seeing the department from this perspective?
Every time I visit Northwestern, I feel inspired and joyful. The energy and ideas of faculty, students, and staff are positive forces in the world. They remind me of why I recall my time at Northwestern so positively: it is joyful and motivating to have the resources, people, and energy to ask and answer big questions. The Ibers lecture were particularly special because they were focused within the inorganic division and so I had the opportunity to meet with faculty and talk about directions in inorganic chemistry that I haven’t had the opportunity to engage with previously. It gave me a window into how a department becomes elite in key areas of emerging science.
What are you most passionate about in your current research?
One of the big barriers to discovery in many areas of science is the need for more detailed and higher throughput characterization techniques. Where those needs intersect with nanomaterials synthesis and processing, we have been exploring how the synthesis itself can be modified and/or leveraged to lower the demands for those analytical tools. To do this, we’re developing a series of exogeneous particle formation initiators (e.g. light), that can mitigate the challenges brought on by rapid dynamics in traditional nanomaterial syntheses. I think these types of approaches can address many challenges at once including better, broader, and more efficient materials design and manufacturing.
If you weren’t a chemist, what is another career could you see yourself pursuing?
I have many, many interests alongside chemistry and have often wished I could lead parallels lives so that I could develop mastery in multiple careers. One career that I’ve dreamed about frequently is to be an archeologist. First, I think it is profound and powerful to recognize the things we share with our ancestors, and just like viewing Earth from space, I think it creates a sense of common purpose and community to understand how our ancestors lived and thought - something like composing a retrosynthesis of how we became modern, if you will. In that exercise, I think we make progress in defining what we want to keep and what we want to improve in human civilization. Imagine holding a toy that a 4-year-old from 5,000 years ago also held. Wow! The richness of what we learn about a society that has crafted and used a child’s toy strikes me as exceptional.
I also simply value the study of history. I think you could argue that the only real data we have to predict human behavior is human history. Therefore, studying and understanding human history is a kind of data collection for rationally predicting current issues, just like the old sayings go.
If you could design a dream collaboration across any field, who would you want to work with and on what problem?
Everyday, millions of people take 10-100 milligram quantities of various small molecules for things like pain relief, hormone regulation, or allergy treatment. In most cases, these quantities are sufficient to regulate the physiology of an organism a million times more massive. Talk about the power of chemistry! Many times, we also learn that these molecules have unintended interactions in the body (some good, so bad). GLP-1s are now being studied for their utility to treat addictions, and we still don’t understand why different women have such different physiologic reactions to exogeneous hormones used for birth control. I’ve always wanted to work with a team of cell biologists, endocrinologists, and bioengineers to develop a toolkit for finding and tracking small molecules in the body de novo and in real time. We already do this to some extent, and in a non-spatially resolved way, for glucose monitoring, but I think developing tools that not only track whole body small molecule concentrations, but also can track their location with high chemical, temporal, and spatial resolution would be a quantum leap in how we understand, and ultimately how we manage, human health.