October 13, 2005
Although she entered college as a Biology major,
Professor Gina Florio gradually found she was particularly
attracted to the challenge and problem-solving aspects of Physical
Chemistry. When a research mentor encouraged her to switch her
major, she decided to jump. She’s never regretted it.
Recently arrived at St. John’s University after three years as a
postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University, Professor Florio
learned in July that she’s been selected by the Camille and Henry
Dreyfus Foundation for a Faculty Start-up Award, one of only 10
meted out each year. Designed to help new faculty members begin
their independent research programs, the Dreyfus award will provide
her with an unrestricted research grant of $30,000.
Around the same time, she was also notified that she’d been
named a recipient of a Clare Booth Luce
Assistant Professorship award, the “single most significant
source of private support for women in science, engineering and
mathematics,” according to the Henry Luce Foundation which
administers the program. This $490,597 award will provide five
years of full salary support plus additional support for her
research, student salaries, travel, equipment and, she says,
“whatever else will enable [her] to achieve” at St. John’s. She was
nominated for this prestigious award, which is actually made to St.
John’s University as one of the 13 universities specifically
designated in Mrs. Luce’s will, by Chemistry
Department Chair
Victor Cesare and Dean Jeffery Fagen
of St. John’s College. To date, there have been 146 Claire Boothe
Luce Professorships awarded by the Foundation.
Professor Florio’s research is focused on how molecules behave,
or “self-assemble,” at surfaces, a subject that has implications
for nanotechnology (the science and technology of building
electronic circuits and devices from single atoms and molecules),
for example, in solar cells and semi-conductors. She will include
her undergraduate General Chemistry and Physical Chemistry
students– and eventually, graduate students -- in her research and
is eying opportunities to utilize lab space not only at St. John’s,
but also at Brookhaven
National Laboratory’s Center for Functional
Nanomaterials, which she reports has “exceptional user
facilities.” She also plans to maintain a collaboration with
scientists at the Nanoscience and Engineering Center at Columbia
University.
She couldn’t have reached this point in her career, Professor
Florio explains, without the guidance of a great research mentor
and dedicated, caring professors. She is determined to bring that
same level of guidance as research mentor and teacher to Chemistry
students at St. John’s. What’s most important, she says, is
“critical thinking, that’s what we want them to learn.”