Svetlana Dimovski: "Out of the Box" Thinker

In a place where the East meets the West, where the balance between the turbulence of politics and the warm, generous hearts of its people is often difficult to describe to an outsider—Svetlana Dimovski packed her bags one late August day a few years back and traveled to Drexel University to study the hot field of nanotechnology. As an undergraduate at the University of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, Svetlana studied Mechanical Engineering and shortly thereafter began to pursue her graduate studies in Mechanical Engineering at the University in the realm of materials behavior during the processing of high-speed machining. "I realized one day that it must be very interesting to see things from the ‘other side,' or ‘out of the box' and with time I became more and more interested in the study of materials," Svetlana says. "My teachers at the University of Novi Sad encouraged me to further pursue materials engineering. I learned about Drexel through them."

Members of the department are glad she did. Currently, Svetlana works closely with Prof. Yury Gogotsi, investigating graphite polyhedral crystals—a new class of nanostructured materials. Their work is being supported by a grant from the Department of Energy.

"There's a lot of hype about nanotechnology right now," Svetlana says of her chosen research arena. "I see nanotechnology as a natural convergence of several different disciplines in science and engineering."

And with the awards and scholarships rolling in, Svetlana also appears to have a few glimmers in her future. Recipient of the best poster awards from the Materials Research Society, The Electrochemical Society and Drexel University's Research Day, Svetlana has also been awarded a scholarship and a fellowship for the upcoming academic year. Both the Amelia Earhart Fellowship and The Dragomir Nikolitch Trust Graduate Scholarship stand as clear markers of her dedication to engineering excellence.

"I see engineering as a way (process) of the transformation of an idea into its practical realization—that's what is so beautiful about it for me," Svetlana says. However, she notes her most important achievement is not the awards, scholarships, publications, or engineering excellence—rather, "It's several very good people I've met here and learning about new ideas and culture through their friendship—that's what I consider the most important."