Postdoctoral fellow Madeline Meier interacting with museum guests on the Meet a Scientist: Birds of a feather: a microscopic take a look at kingfisher coloration occasion on the Subject Museum of Pure Historical past.
Madeline Meier is a postdoctoral scholar at Northwestern College’s Heart for Scientific Research within the Arts, a collaboration with the Artwork Institute of Chicago. A 2017 chemistry graduate of the College of Arkansas, she credit her undergraduate expertise and the mentorship and alternatives she obtained by means of the Honors Faculty with shaping her interdisciplinary method to analysis. After incomes her Ph.D. in chemistry at Caltech, the place she studied how gentle interacts with nanostructured supplies, Meier turned her focus to the humanities. She now applies the identical instruments and methods she used within the lab to analyze centuries-old artworks, together with Qing dynasty featherworks created with the intricate tian-tsui approach, bridging chemistry, physics and artwork in her analysis.
The hanging blue of the tian-tsui display panels was seen from throughout the room, however nearer inspection revealed simply how spectacular the artistry and craftsmanship have been. What gave the impression to be steady materials ensuing within the sensible, blue coloring on the panels really consisted of particular person feather items meticulously adhered collectively. Tian-tsui is a method that dates again over 2,000 years that includes utilizing kingfisher feathers to create intricate designs on hairpins, jewellery, or in rarer instances bigger objects such because the headdresses and display panels I used to be inspecting. I felt extremely fortunate to be observing these objects from the Qing dynasty up shut. In some methods, my analysis on these featherworks appeared far off from what I had been not too long ago exploring as a graduate pupil on the California Institute of Know-how (Caltech).
Once I began my postdoctoral fellowship on the Northwestern College / Artwork Institute of Chicago Heart for Scientific Research within the Arts, I started a collaboration with the Subject Museum of Pure Historical past investigating kingfisher featherworks fabricated through tian-tsui. Right here my background got here full circle, as one aspect of the mission concerned understanding the structural coloration of kingfisher feathers. Structural coloration, in distinction to dyes and pigments, stems from ordered micro and nanoscale options and is steadily present in nature (e.g., morpho butterfly wings and peacock feathers). In learning the feathers’ structural coloration, I relied on methods each new and routine to me. Optical scatterometry measurements, a method with which I used to be rapidly changing into acquainted, helped our staff higher perceive how the blue coloring of the feathers modified primarily based on the lighting circumstances and statement angle. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), a method I’m nicely versed in from my time in graduate faculty, aided within the characterization of nanoscale options chargeable for producing the attribute kingfisher blue coloring.
SEM is my device of alternative to look at objects and their options at excessive magnifications, whether or not it’s for observing the microscopic construction of a kingfisher feather or characterizing nanostructured movies as I did as a graduate pupil. My work all through my PhD in Professor Nate Lewis’ group at Caltech centered on investigating a template-free methodology to nanostructure semiconducting supplies coined inorganic phototropic progress. On this light-mediated electrodeposition course of the sunshine supply circumstances (e.g., wavelength, polarization, and angle) affect the ensuing movie morphology. Understanding the underlying, basic light-matter interactions that direct the expansion course of and the way these phenomena associated to modifications in function measurement, spacing, and orientation relied closely on SEM for the visualization of nanoscale options in addition to quite a few different characterization and computational strategies.
Tian-tsui objects featured on the Meet a Scientist exhibit displaying the complexity and intricacy of the tian-tsui craft.
Credit score: Emmanuel Meenattoor, Subject Museum
As my graduate pupil profession progressed, I started to discover doable profession paths and was introduced again to my time on the U o fA. Throughout my undergraduate research as a chemistry main, I minored in sustainability. The interdisciplinary focus of the sustainability subject drew me to it. In trying to find my subsequent steps submit graduate faculty, I sought to discover avenues which have that very same interdisciplinary element I valued. Listening to of the sector of cultural heritage science, the scientific investigation of cultural heritage objects and artefacts, I used to be fascinated. Nonetheless, I used to be uncertain if it might be doable to pursue this subject given my previous research and present analysis. Reaching out to conservators and scientists in cultural heritage, I higher understood how they received concerned in cultural heritage and what analysis questions they investigated. I used to be thrilled to study that whereas it might be a big pivot, the identical methods, methodologies, and instrumentation I used to be conversant in might be put to make use of on these objects with new and thrilling challenges. Cultural heritage science has precisely the interdisciplinary focus I needed.
Getting into my closing yr of my postdoctoral fellowship I’m excited to see what new initiatives and thru these initiatives what new challenges await. Simply in September, I had the chance to share my work on kingfisher featherworks at an “Meet a Scientist” Grainger Science Hub exhibit at The Subject Museum the place I interacted with museum guests and shared a behind-the-scenes look into the fascinating analysis and subject of cultural heritage science.
