The Air Force Office of Scientific Research received 290 proposals for its Young Investigator Research Program and recently announced it was awarding $13.9 million in grants to 31 scientists and engineers. One of those winners of a three-year, $450,000 grant was Masha Kamenetska, a Boston University assistant professor of physics, chemistry, and materials science and engineering, who grew up in the former Soviet Union, where she first found her passion for math and science.

Kamenetska: My parents both have a science background and throughout my childhood they exposed me to and encouraged me in math and science. I was born in what was then the Soviet Union where mathematics was taught by repetition and rote practice. My elementary school teacher would try to stimulate our enthusiasm by setting up little math competitions for us to do; I remember the thrill of solving a problem and moving on to the next, more challenging one. There were several of us doing this challenge in class and we all raced against each other for who could solve it faster.

But in middle and high school, here in the United States, I wanted to rebel, so I decided that I preferred creative writing to science. That phase lasted till my sophomore year in high school, when I took the first physics class and I got hooked! I became addicted to the notion that one could use mathematics and logic to describe and model the reality around us.

I went on to major in physics in college and got my PhD in applied physics after that. It has not always been easy, but my appreciation for the ethos of scientific inquiry continues to drive me.

I found out about the Young Investigator Award from the Air Force when I started here at BU last summer and began researching funding possibilities. I was very happy to find out that the AFOSR was interested in funding biophysics and that their stated research areas within biophysics aligned well with my own research goals, so I thought this may be a good match.

I think it is very laudable and fortunate that the Air Force invests in science research in general, and in young investigators in particular, to give new faculty members like me the chance to pursue innovative research directions even if we do not yet have a strong record of independent publications. This Young Investigator Award gives me and my lab a huge boost and enables research directions that could lead to some discoveries and also allow us to grow as a lab. I think good science benefits from an inflow of new ideas and I am very grateful for this opportunity for my lab to contribute to the field.

Electrical properties of DNA molecules have been probed and debated for over twenty years now. People are interested in this molecule’s ability to conduct electricity because of its potential for next-generation electronics. If it is conductive, then it is a nanowire whose exact length and composition we can control with atomic precision using biochemical techniques. This control opens up the possibility to engineer DNA nanowires for various applications.

In addition to applications in electronics, DNA conductivity also has biological significance. If charge can efficiently delocalize along DNA, then perhaps this property evolved to serve a function inside cells that we do not yet understand. Some people suspect that DNA conductance may play a role in signaling among proteins bound on a DNA strand, for example, but this is not firmly established.

Working at BU has been a wonderful experience so far. I have learned so much from my colleagues in physics, chemistry, materials science, and engineering, and have benefited tremendously from their generosity and help. Being a PI [principal investigator] is very different from being a postdoc or a graduate student, and my colleagues have really helped with making that transition. I especially value BU’s emphasis on interdisciplinary work and everyone’s willingness to collaborate and help each other.

Keep an open mind and do not pay too much attention to distinctions between disciplines. There is great overlap between seemingly different areas of science, so pick whatever seems interesting at that moment and go for it. Also, do not worry about doing it all as an undergraduate or graduate student. It is better to really focus on something and become an expert; you can branch out later.