The program supports scientists with “remarkable track records, promising futures and a desire to expand their research portfolios by exploring a substantive disciplinary or methodological shift soon after achieving tenure,” according to Schmidt Sciences.
“Nozomi has built an internationally recognized career by crossing disciplinary boundaries – from physics and chemistry to biology – to pioneer new structural biology methods for probing the motions that proteins undergo during catalysis and regulation,” said Tristan Lambert, the William T. Miller Professor and chair of chemistry and chemical biology (A&S). “With the Polymath Award, she will take a bold new step into uncharted territory, integrating biochemistry, geochemistry and evolutionary biology to explore the co-evolution of life and the planet.”
“Having moved across different disciplines, I’ve never felt like I fully belonged to any one field,” Ando said. “To be recognized by the Schmidt Science Polymaths Program means a great deal to me. The freedom this award provides allows me to step outside the usual boundaries and expectations, and that is truly amazing.”
Drawn from universities worldwide and selected through a competitive application process, Schmidt Polymaths are required to demonstrate past ability and future potential to pursue early-stage, novel research that would otherwise be challenging to fund, even without the current dramatic declines in U.S. funding for science, Schmidt Sciences said in a statement.
Ando’s breakthroughs range from establishing diffuse X-ray scattering as a window into protein motions to uncovering how enzymes adapted to Earth’s changing atmosphere. She also participates in The Diffuse Project, a new $5 million initiative, funded by the Astera Institute, that aims to make diffuse scattering – a signal in X-ray crystallography that reveals protein dynamics – accessible to the public and the broader scientific community. Her experimental work on this project is being conducted at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS).