Illuminating Science: Mentor relationship provides rewards, awards for student and scientist

When Argonne chemical physicist Rex Gerald first met William Thompson at a regional science fair, William’s Helmholtz Coil stuck out like a sore thumb.

The tall, serious, and reserved eighth grader made an immediate impression on Gerald. “My initial thoughts about William were that he was a bit defensive and arrogant,” Gerald said. “He probably had a similar opinion of me.”

Maybe the perceived arrogance was really just confidence. After all, William had a reason to be confident. His project achieved the Best of Category in Physics for the junior division at the Chicago Regional Science Fair for Non-Public Schools. Gerald, who had attended the fair because his daughter was exhibiting a project, gave William his card so the two could chat.

On June 5, 2004, more than two years and a couple of handfuls of science awards later, Thompson and Gerald were honored side-by-side at a special luncheon held at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

William, now a high school junior at St. Ignatius College Preparatory School in Chicago, received the ComEd 100 Science Award for his work with toroid cavities. The award honors students who exhibit a strong interest in science and develop an exemplary scientific project.

The program also recognizes leading mentors who actively support these students. Gerald received one of five Illinois statewide Illuminator Awards, after William nominated him. (Since then, Gerald has rigged lasers in order to, well, illuminate his Illuminator award.)

“As one might suspect there is more to the story than most would imagine,” Gerald said. “It has all been taking place over a couple of years in the background noise of our work here at Argonne. William is considered a scientific superstar.”

William has been interested in science since the fourth grade, particularly electromagnetism and magnetic fields. He said he taught himself, learning mostly through his own observations and, of course, a lot of reading — including graduate-level textbooks.

William’s father, Marc, has been a strong supporter of his science endeavors. “William and his dedicated dad are close partners in all that William does academically,” said Argonne’s Rex Gerald.

Marc Thompson, William’s father and biggest supporter, said when William was young, he always made sure he had the right books.

“We hardly ever walk into a book store without walking out with a stack of books, and I have always encouraged William to go through them to gather the necessary knowledge,” William’s father said.

The elder Thompson received his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California at Berkeley and works as a consultant in the derivatives market industry. He has provided monetary support for William’s efforts and has also helped transport projects and lab equipment so that when William got home from school he could hit the ground running. He also taught him to solder, use power tools and weld at a young age.

“We built a lot of things together,” Thompson said, “but my main role is that of a sherpa.”

In his first scientific experiment, at the age of 12 — when other sixth-graders are being introduced to the scientific method, William used a Gauss meter to measure electromagnetic fields and make three-dimensional models of the fields surrounding computer screens and microwave ovens. He tried to determine a direct link between cancer and power lines and other strong electromagnetic fields, and researched electromagnetism in commercial buildings, looking for a way to shield people from it. “The year I met Rex, I built something called a Helmholtz Coil,” William said. “I thought if I could just determine what the conduction of the metal was in a perfect [homogeneous] field, then my measurements would be a lot more accurate.”

A Helmholtz Coil is a pair of circular coils that are separated by a distance equal to the coil radius. The spacing optimizes the homogeneity of the oscillating magnetic field when alternating current flows through the coil. Most sixth-graders have never heard of one.

At the time, the coils sold commercially for around $4,000. William made his for $200, using large garbage cans as coil forms.

Of course, in science, nothing works perfectly the first time. But the senior Thompson used these early experiments to teach William life-long lessons. “William designed the coil support, and I knew it was too thin. He didn’t realize how heavy the wire would be,” Thompson said. “When the coil moved laterally, the support snapped.”

It even broke again on the way to the regional science fair.

In preparation for the state science fair, William repaired the device. It looked fine but would no longer work. Recalling his meeting earlier with Rex Gerald, William called Gerald and arranged a meeting to troubleshoot and repair the device.

Later, when William decided he wanted to expand his scientific pursuits, Gerald, who works in Argonne’s Chemical Engineering Division, explained his ongoing studies in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). NMR spectroscopy allows researchers to obtain information about the physical, chemical and electronic properties of molecules in complex systems. A sample is placed in a static external magnetic field and irradiated with radio waves. Atomic nuclei become excited and later re-emit the radiation. The key to determining the sample’s properties is the pattern of radiation emission. Each element has a unique signature comprising a nuclear spin and precessional frequency (similar to the wobble of a top) in a magnetic field. A superconducting magnet is used to align the sample’s nuclei. By sending small bursts of energy and seeing how the nuclei respond, scientists are able to characterize a substance (spatial disposition, chemical composition/architecture and molecular dynamics) without destroying it.

“It can determine the flavor of a jelly bean and the color of a jelly bean based solely on the properties of the response,” William said. “Before I met him, I had no knowledge of the field,” William said. “He brought me into this esoteric field and taught me NMR, how to use the device, and the whole science behind it.”

At Argonne, “the device” includes an Argonne-designed toroid cavity — a type of probe inside the superconducting magnet. Inside the toroid cavity is a central conductor, a key component of Argonne’s NMR detector. William wanted to determine if the sensitivity of the toroid cavity detector (the NMR measuring device) could be improved.

He designed a new toroid NMR probe that used mercury to vary the length of the central conductor. He was looking for a relationship between the length of the central conductor, the energy entering and leaving, and the sensitivity of the detector. “I found if I maximized the energy going in and shortened the length of the conductor, then I would have greater sensitivity,” he said.

As the project went on, it became more complicated, and William learned a lot of graduate-level physics. When he wasn’t working on the project in the NMR Laboratory at the University of Chicago, William communicated with Gerald regularly over the phone or by e-mail. Gerald also went to the Thompsons’ home a few evenings upon the invitation of William’s father.

“William and his dedicated dad are close partners in all that William does academically,” Gerald said. “I served as an advisor and his father as a facilitator. William was at the interface, in the middle of it all.” One time, he said, they stayed up all night trying to meet the deadline for the toroid cavity project. They were so exhilarated by their success that they felt no fatigue.

Gerald’s creativity as a mentor led him to suggest to William that he set up a computer workstation at home to analyze his work. Computer modeling has become a staple of scientific research, but access to on-line workstations attached to sophisticated, expensive research equipment is at a premium. Then there is the matter of a learning curve for users. “If William had relied on his being able to access the system that’s connected to our NMR equipment, his advancement would have been limited. With access to an off-line system, not only did he have the luxury of unlimited access, but he didn’t have to be concerned about what might accidentally happen to our equipment. He could just reboot and try again.” William was able to acquire an old Sun Microsystems computer workstation and an NMR software license and manuals generously donated by Varian, Inc.. “I have never had a student so committed and endowed with such resources,” Gerald said. “Having the workstation at home put him far ahead of where he would otherwise have been.”

William’s toroid cavity work won him 16 awards and thousands of dollars in prize money. Not bad for a 15-year-old! And his research continues. Under Gerald’s leadership he has begun working on a novel ceramic battery electrolyte.

William is building on Gerald’s work with porous ceramic membranes for rechargeable batteries. An aluminum-oxide membrane serves as a combined separator and electrolyte monolith for lithium-ion batteries. Rechargeable batteries work by reversing the electrochemical reaction in the battery, returning it to its original state so it can discharge again. The reaction depends on the movement of lithium ions through the separator, the faster the better. In the novel concept on which William is working, the ions move extremely fast, through oriented microscopic channels in the separator. Moreover, during recharge, metallic spike-like “dendrites” are formed that can puncture conventional separators, which are plastic. The tough, ceramic aluminum oxide resists puncture. Fast ion transport is one of the keys that will lead to high-energy, high-power batteries for hybrid electric vehicles.

The work complements a project in the Ion Transport Mechanism Program that Gerald is working on with his colleagues. “William’s work is cutting-edge research in the basic and applied sciences, not your typical advanced science fair project,” Gerald said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” There have been a lot of trials in this current project that haven’t worked. But William said he learned from Gerald that true success is built on a long series of failures. “I try to provide an avenue for students to test their mettle; if not, I don’t feel like I’ve done what I set out to do,” Gerald said.

Thompson aims to make a perfect separator that he can test in a battery of his own construction. He expects the project will take another year. He said this project is more independent and requires more novel thinking than the last one, and Gerald encourages this.

William has taken only one formal science course at St. Ignatius College Preparatory School. He said Gerald gives him work that he doesn’t get to do in school. It both challenges him and stimulates him intellectually.

“He presents a problem and wants you to figure it out on your own. That is more fulfilling then just being told the answer,” William said. “He is an independent thinker, and wants his students to be independently minded.”

In his 600-plus-word essay nominating Gerald for the Illuminator Award, William wrote: “That Dr. Gerald is a gifted scientific intellectual and an intrepid scientific researcher, explorer and inventor, is axiomatic. What is not readily known is his unique gift for encouraging young scientists to persevere in the face of inevitable experimental failures, challenging them to think ‘outside the box,’ or the confines of orthodoxy, to find the answers to surmounting the obstacles that loom so large in front of them.”

William said Gerald never gave him the answers, but instead “planted the seed of an idea or redirected stalled thinking.” William said this was extremely inspirational.

Gerald said he has several criteria for his students. He promises not to give them a “cookie-cutter” or “boxed” project, and expects them to present at an international conference, write a peer-reviewed manuscript and produce an invention and patent application.

While writing an invention report and a patent application might seem a bit unusual at the student level, the push to create an invention often takes students in directions they might not otherwise go, and leads to some surprising discoveries. But there is a practical aspect to Gerald’s approach, as well.

“Not every great idea is a true invention, and not all inventions are patentable,” says Gerald. “And even if an invention makes it through the patenting process, there’s no guarantee it will actually find use.” Patenting is costly, and the ability to produce and patent inventions effectively is a highly valuable skill.

Gerald intends his students to be leaders in moving intellectual property into use. Two former students have patents on their work, and a patent application has been filed for two other students who recently completed stints at Argonne.

Other than setting the bar high, Gerald has no prescribed formula for effective mentoring. He has had up to seven interns at one time in his lab at Argonne and says each student is unique.

Thompson said one of the most important things is providing an environment that is conducive to learning and teaching kids that it is okay, even cool, to be smart. William is not only learning this himself, but also showing other students. Gerald said he was told that the involvement of students in science at William’s high school had quadrupled, in large part because of William’s work and his notable successes.

For next year’s science fair competition, William has a project in mind that will help other students access the kinds of resources that have helped him become a science superstar. He plans to set up a scientific mentoring network to connect high school students with scientist mentors around the state, and eventually around the globe.

William’s father said creating a mentor network is probably the most important thing William has done. His connections include high-level physicists, scientific machinists and software vendors who are willing to share their experience and skills and donate their products to students.

“It is my sincere belief that my modest successes as a student scientific researcher have been less attributable to my own innate abilities than they have to the generosity of time, knowledge and patience afforded to me by the many individuals that have acted as scientific mentors to me,” William said.

William now wants to give other students the opportunity to be “illuminated” by scientists and science, just as Argonne’s Rex Gerald has inspired and challenged him.

• More on Rex Gerald's Mentoring Activities

--Source. Explorer, Argonne National Laboratory, Communications and Public Affairs