Ridgewood High School teacher lauded by NJ Inventors Hall of Fame
A few years ago, using blackberry juice and titanium dioxide, a non-toxic ingredient found in powdered sugar, Ridgewood "High School (RHS) science teacher Lillian Labowsky and her students began making dye-sensitized nanocrystalline solar cells with enough "juice" to power a calculator.
Three years after Labowsky began the project, which was funded through a National Science Foundation (NSF) program that paired graduate students and grade school teachers to promote science education, it is clear Labowsky did not just help her students make power - she also empowered them to invent.
For her involvement in the innovative two-year project, Labowsky has received accolades from both the state and the "district.
The physics and chemistry teacher was recently recognized by the Board of Education (BOE) for the 2012 "Advancement of Invention" Award she received from the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame (NJIHoF) in "October.
She was one of only 25 scientists in the state, including three Nobel Prize laureates, to be inducted in the Hall of Fame. Labowsky was nominated for the award by a Stevens Institute of Technology graduate who helped her with the NSF program project. She was chosen because, according to the NJIHoF, her teaching is "inspiring the next generation of scientists."
In a press release, her passion for science was deemed of "special note" and called "inspiring" by NJIHoF President Les Avery.
It was a high honor worthy of a teacher whose students, when contacted, spoke of her obvious passion and enthusiasm. It was also not the first time Nobel Prize winners have been closely associated with Labowsky, who said she was inspired to teach by her Yale University thesis adviser John Fenn, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
"It is my goal to try to inspire young scientists just as [Professor] Fenn inspired me," said Labowsky, who attended Fenn's Nobel Prize ceremony.
While Labowsky is no longer participating in the NSF program because of a two-year limitation, the solar cell project "is still going strong," she said. It has been integrated into her curriculum and expanded into a larger nanotechnology project.
"I hope this project will serve as an enriching real world connection for my students," she said. "We will continue to make blackberry juice solar cells to run small electronics as we did for the past three years, but we will also explore other advanced technology areas such as nano-medicine, nano-fibers, and nano-glues."