Monica Olvera de la Cruz

Monica Olvera de la Cruz
Olvera de la Cruz in 2010
Born	Acapulco
Alma mater	UNAM Trinity College, University of Cambridge
Known for	soft matter physics electrolytes
Awards	David and Lucile Packard Foundation fellowship (1989) Alfred P. Sloan fellowship (1990) Presidential Young Investigator Award (1990) National Academy of Sciences Cozzarelli Prize (2007) National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowship (2010) Miller Institute Visiting Professor (2015-16) American Physical Society Polymer Physics Prize (2017)
Scientific career
Fields	physics
Institutions	Northwestern University
Doctoral advisor	Sir Sam Edwards
Doctoral students	Anne M. Mayes
Website	http://aztec.tech.northwestern.edu

Monica Olvera de la Cruz is a soft-matter theorist, the Lawyer Taylor Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Professor of Chemistry, and by courtesy Professor of Physics and Astronomy and of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University.

Biography[]

Olvera de la Cruz obtained her B.A. in Physics from the UNAM, Mexico, in 1981, and her Ph.D. in Physics from Cambridge University, UK, in 1985. She has been a faculty member at Northwestern University since 1986. From 1995-97, she worked as a Senior Staff Scientist at the Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique, Centre de’Etude, Saclay, France. Olvera de la Cruz is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences^[1] as well as the American Philosophical Society^[2] and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Physical Society.

She directed the Northwestern Materials Research Center^[3] from 2006–2013, which she grew in research, funding level^[4][5] and education, and expanded it by developing the Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts (NU-ACCESS),^[6] an outreach program aimed at advancing the role of science and engineering in society. She is the Director of the Center for Computation and Theory of Soft Materials (CCTSM) at Northwestern University.

Research[]

Olvera de la Cruz has developed novel methods to analyze complex systems, and in particular molecular electrolytes. She explained the limitations associated with separating long DNA chains via gel electrophoresis dynamics,^[7][8] which was of great importance to the Human Genome Project.

Monica Olvera de la Cruz discovered that counterions induce the precipitation of strongly charged polyelectrolytes by including electrostatic correlations in the analysis.^{[9][10][11][12]} Her work provided a completely revised model of electrostatic effects in complex electrolytes^[13] and in dielectrically heterogeneous media.^[14][15]

She has described the emergence of shape and patterns in membranes and in multicomponent complex mixtures. She and her students and postdocs discovered that electrostatics leads to spontaneous symmetry breaking in ionic membranes such as viral capsids^[16] (for which they were awarded the 2007 Cozzarelli Prize^[17]) and in fibers.^[18][19]

They also demonstrated the spontaneous emergence of various regular and irregular polyhedral geometries in closed membranes with non-homogeneous elastic properties such as bacterial microcompartments, including carboxysomes,^[20] via a mechanism that explains observed shapes in crystalline shells formed by more than one component such as archaea and organelle wall envelopes as well as in ionic vesicles.^[21]

By simulating crystals of DNA functionalized nanoparticles with complementary linkers containing both small and large nanoparticles, the Olvera de la Cruz group discovered colloidal crystal “metallicity",^[22][23] whereby small colloids become delocalized within a larger crystal structure. They noted that the transition from the localized to delocalized state is analogous to an insulator-metal transition in atomic systems and that the minimum metallicity as a function of the “valency” (i.e., the number ratio between small to large colloids) is analogous to conductivity. Recently, she and her students showed that the localization-delocalization transition is phonon-driven^[24]. Additionally, it was also seen that in some cases the localization-delocalization transition is accompanied with a crystal phase transition, strongly resembling a Peierls transition^[25].

Olvera de la Cruz and Qiao found that the binding of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein receptor-binding domain (RBD) to the human cell receptor hACE2 can be strongly decreased by mutating or blocking the polybasic cleavage site (known as the furin cleavage site),^[26] providing a mechanism to decrease COVID 19 infection, as subsequently demonstrated experimentally.^[27] This work ^[26] has been highlighted in numerous news media around the world and listed as one of the significant scientific events in 2020 in Wikipedia.^[28]

Awards and significant honors[]

• 2020 Member of the American Philosophical Society^[29]
• 2017 American Physical Society Polymer Physics Prize
• 2015-16 Miller Institute Visiting Professor.
• 2012 Member of the National Academy of Sciences.
• 2010 National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow.^[30]
• 2010 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
• 2007 Cozzarelli Prize, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).^[17]
• 2001 Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society
• 1990 National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award.^[31]
• 1990 Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship^{[citation needed]}
• 1989 David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship in Science and Engineering.^[32]

Policy and public service[]

Olvera de la Cruz currently serves on the US Department of Energy's Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee,^[33] and the United States National Research Council. She serves on the advisory boards of the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz^[34] and the Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielle de la ville de Paris (ESPCI Paris).^[35] She is a Senior Editor for the journal ACS Central Science,^[36] and a member of the Gordon Research Conferences' Board of Trustees.^[37] She has participated in many other committees including the National Research Council Board of Physics and Astronomy (2010-2015), Committee on Societal Benefits from Condensed Matter and Materials Research, Research at the Intersection of Physical and Life Sciences (RIPLS), the Solid State Science Committee and the Committee on Key Challenge Areas for Convergence and Health; from 2010-12 she chaired the Condensed Matter and Materials Research Committee. From 2005 to 2009 she was in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate Advisory Committee of the National Science Foundation, and chaired the Division of Materials Research Advisory Committee.

References[]