LVOV
Will Trahan
Staff Reporter
The Institute for Micromanufacturing at Louisiana Tech has one of the biggest names in nanosystems and chemistry on its faculty, Yuri Lvov.
Lvov has been awarded the prestigious Humboldt Prize for his pioneering research on two different fronts.
“The significance of Yuri’s contributions to the field of chemistry and nanoscience are matched only by the impact he has had on the academic and research reputation of Louisiana Tech,” said Tech President Les Guice in a press release.
Lvov currently works with his study in making nanotubes stronger by wrapping them in clay and making them more effective.
Joshua Tully, a junior chemistry major, is one of Lvov’s main student apprentices helping to perfect this nanotube delivery system.
“My goal is to make this already affective system even better in functionality,” Tully said.
Lvov said that he is looking to train his students to carry on and perfect the research that he has started.
Lvov said before all of his groundbreaking work in the chemistry world, he started out as a professor in Russia.
Lvov said in Russia professors get their Ph.D., then get their teaching degree and get a job anywhere to teach.
“Once the market crashed in Russia, all the funding for my lab disappeared completely,” Lvov said.
Lvov was then invited to go work in Germany and participate in a new study in self-assembly.
He said his pioneering work in making an electrostatic layer-by-layer nanoassembly, where positive and negative composites are stacked. changed scientists’ method of doing it Lvov said.
“My team and I were the first ones to try this method and now it is being done all over the world,” Lvov said.
Lvov said he was then invited to work in Japan, and met a U.S. professor and was invited to come to America to continue his research.
“In 1996, I came to the U.S. and worked in the naval laboratory for two years in Washington,” Lvov said.
Lvov said he then got three offers to teach in nanosystems by Texas Tech, University of New Orleans and Louisiana Tech.
Lvov said he accepted the job at Louisiana Tech because of the salary and because he really liked the town of Ruston and the area of the state.
He started at Tech in 1999 and has been here ever since.
“When I started here, I was much more well known around the world than I was here in Louisiana,” Lvov said.
Lvov said in one way it helped him because he could get his work done, but it hurt him because local politics got in the way of funding.
Email comments to bwt008@latech.edu.