Editor's note: This article was produced by a student participating in the course J477/577: Strategic Science Communication, a collaboration between the School of Journalism and Communication’s Science Communication Minor program and the Research Communications unit in the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation.

Kayla Nguyen, an assistant professor of physics, once dreamed of floating in space. Now she instills dreams in other aspiring scientists. 

Nguyen is a co-inventor of the Electron Microscope Pixel Array Detector (EMPAD), a state-of-the-art electron microscopy device sold all over the world. 

The small field of grass across from Carson Hall, an on-campus residence hall, is familiar to most students and faculty who bike or walk past on their way to classes. Nguyen walks briskly through the vibrant courtyard, explaining that just below our feet is some of the most valuable equipment on campus. The Center for Advanced Materials Characterization in Oregon (CAMCOR) is home to an array of imaging technology, including electron microscopes.

Nguyen is not only a brilliant physicist, but she is also a naturally talented communicator. She originally entered her PhD program hoping to become an astronaut, inspired at a young age by Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. However, Nguyen's ideas and priorities shifted as she spent time immersed in the community around her.

While in graduate school, she found herself volunteering in underserved communities in New York and Washington, D.C. These experiences shaped her career aspirations. She found that there was a lack of science communication and empathy towards those who did not have access to education and science information. Nguyen said that her time volunteering made her realize that “one of the gifts that I do have is to communicate science to a general audience and to motivate and inspire people.”

Nguyen explained, “Cutting edge research can feel so far from the general public, but it's actually not that far.” 

For example, electron microscopy. Nguyen stresses that research conducted using such devices, which use a beam of electrons to illuminate both biological and non-biological specimens at immense resolution, can be used for a breadth of applications that touch people's everyday lives. Ranging from innovations in computer chips and drug delivery systems to motor vehicles, art restoration, cancer research, and protein analysis, these technologies are efficient, saving time, money, and lives.

On Balance

At the UO, Nguyen is a research mentor for two graduate students using electron microscopy in different ways. She explained the research of one of her graduate mentees with a Jell-O metaphor. 

“Imagine you take a piece of Jell-O and poke it, the Jell-O itself would just bend, but the structure of the Jell-O would bounce back after you poke it,” Nguyen said. She explained that skyrmions, magnetic vortex structures, are similar in the way that their structures can be “poked”, and the magnetic field will remain intact. 

She is also mentoring a researcher who focuses on understanding and improving quantum computing, with the goal of making quantum technology useful in a variety of contexts.

Throughout her experience doing research, Nguyen has found that, “If there is a will, there is always a way.” By having constraints on research, such as a limited budget, Nguyen's critical, problem-solving mind is forced to flourish.

 “If you have all the money in the world then you don’t need that creativity, and you lack that grit to actually push through,” Nguyen said.

Extremely passionate about her research and her science education, Nguyen also knows that burnout is a real danger facing anyone in the academic workforce. She intends to have a long career, with a goal to work into her 70s; with this foresight, she takes time and effort to avoid losing motivation or passion for her work.

Being in Oregon allows her to enjoy time outside, and in the winters, she sometimes takes her work to the slopes. “Life is all about balance,” Nguyen said. “I took my backpack all the way to the top mountain, snowboarded down to mid-mountain, wrote a letter [of recommendation] in the lodge, and rode the ski lift back up. There is efficiency in doing your work and also being outside. I think the University of Oregon gives you both.”

She may not be floating in space, but Kayla Nguyen is still an explorer, diving into unknown and newly discovered parts of the world here on Earth. All the while, she is inspiring a new generation of passionate scientists and bridging the gap between the public and science.

— By Isa Eisenberg for the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation