Chekesha Liddell facts for kids

Chekesha M. Liddell Watson is a smart scientist. She is a professor at Cornell University. She studies tiny materials called colloids. These are like tiny particles mixed in a liquid. Her work helps us understand how these tiny particles behave.

Early Life and Education

Chekesha Liddell grew up in Tallahassee, Florida. From a young age, her parents noticed she was good with shapes and spaces. When she was 8, she started attending special math and science classes. In high school, she went to a summer camp at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This camp was for young scientists from minority groups. She also worked with a top female scientist at the Kennedy Space Center. They even wrote a science paper together!

In 1999, Chekesha finished two college degrees. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Spelman College. She graduated with very high honors. She also got a Bachelor of Science in Materials Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology.

She received a special scholarship from NASA. This scholarship allowed her to study how arsenic moves through chickens. She worked at the Kennedy Space Center during this time. In 2003, she earned her PhD in Material Science from Georgia Institute of Technology. Her PhD project was about making special zinc sulfide colloids. These tiny particles could be building blocks for 3D photonic crystals. After her PhD, she received a $20,000 grant from Georgia Institute of Technology. This grant helped her start her career.

Research and Discoveries

Dr. Liddell creates photonic crystals. These crystals are special materials that can control light. She hopes they can be used in solar cells to make them better. She uses tiny colloidal particles as building blocks for these crystals.

She has also studied how tiny particles can put themselves together. This process is called Self-assembly. She worked with particles that are shaped like half-spheres or pairs of spheres.

In 2003, Dr. Liddell joined the faculty at Cornell University. She is also a member of a group called the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers. This group supports Black chemists and chemical engineers.

In 2006, she won a big award called the National Science Foundation Career Award. This award helped her research new ways to design photonic crystals. Her work from this award led to 16 published research papers. In 2009, she received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. This is a very important award from the President of the United States. In 2011, Cornell University recognized her as one of their "Emerging Scholars."

Awards and Honors

Dr. Liddell has received many awards for her important work:

• (2011) Named an "Emerging Scholar" by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education magazine.
• (2010) Received the Provost's Award for Distinguished Research from Cornell University.
• (2009) Was a special lecturer for the Dow Chemical Company at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
• (2007) Got a Certificate of Appreciation for Mentoring from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
• (2007) Invited to the Frontiers of Science Symposium by the National Academy of Sciences and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
• (2006) Won the NSF Career Award for her work on photonic crystal design.
• (2003) Received a Career Initiation Grant from Facilitating Academic Careers in Engineering and Sciences.
• (1999-2003) Awarded a Graduate Fellowship from the Office of Naval Research.
• (1999-2003) Received the Georgia Tech President's Fellowship.
• (1999-2003) Awarded a Fellowship from Facilitating Academic Careers in Engineering and Sciences.
• (2000) Named a Fellow by the National Society of Black Engineers.
• (1999) Received a Fellowship Grant from the Hertz Foundation.
• (1999) Won the J. Keith Brimacombe Presidential Scholarship from the TMS materials society.
• (1998) Received the ASM Foundation Scholarship from ASM International materials.
• (1999) Awarded the Mary R. Norton Memorial Fellowship from ASTM.

See also

In Spanish: Chekesha Liddell para niños