In profiling chemistry professor Leslie Schoop for Princeton's "Making Audacious Bets" series, part of Princeton Advancement's Venture Forward fundraising campaign, Don Steinberg saw an opportunity to write the dramatic story of a scientific breakthrough. The story highlights Schoop's expertise, tenacity, and leadership, as well as Princeton's foresight in supporting her convention-busting research. Schoop's lab set out to develop a new way to create thin sheets of quantum nanomaterial, using a method many experts told her could never work. Princeton placed its "audacious bet" by wooing her away from a prestigious institute in her native Germany and setting her up with a lab at Princeton, where she had earned her doctorate. Her team worked for five years, sometimes with discouraging results. But under Schoop's guidance—her mother had advised her "there's always a solution"—they kept at it. Finally a breakthrough came when they turned the problem inside out and saw it from a new perspective. The result is an enlightening story of discovery that makes the science and its importance accessible to readers, illustrating Princeton’s commitment to groundbreaking research. It’s also a revealing portrait of Schoop, whose training gave her confidence her idea would work, even amid setbacks and doubts. She won quiet vindication with the success. “Science should never say that something is impossible," she says. "We can say things are unlikely. But…you need to do the experiment. Then you can tell me if it works or not.”
From the Judges
A beautiful story that takes a topic like materials science, which can sometimes be hard to digest, and explains it with unbelievable clarity. Additionally, judges were impressed by how much research went into telling this story.
