Graduate Student Spotlight: Ira Martyniak
Chemistry Graduate Student Ira Martyniak describes her research and answers 20 random questions as part of the Graduate Student Spotlight series.
Originally from Ukraine, Ira Martyniak has studied and conducted research in France, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, and has been at MIT since 2023. She credits a lifelong attraction to minerals and gemstones (and a childhood dream of becoming a jeweler!) with influencing her decision to combine her passion for mathematics and hard sciences with chemical crystallography. As Ira got older, she learned the many ways the crystals she grew could become functional materials capable of making a world of difference to society.
At the age of 16, Ira enrolled at the University of Lviv in Ukraine. From there, she pursued studies in Materials Chemistry at the École Normale Supérieure and Sorbonne University in France, the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. She brought all this scientific and multicultural experience to MIT, where, within Professor Danna Freedman‘s lab, she conducts research into rare-earth-element-free magnetism and crystallography method development.
“Within my doctoral research, I synthesize new solid-state compounds by mimicking what planets do to create minerals – I make elements react under conditions of extreme pressure and temperature. I use this planetary-mimetic synthetic strategy to overcome the relativity-induced chemical inertness of the main-group sixth-row elements and access new magnetic and superconducting matter that is rare-earth-element-free,” said Ira. “I use a variety of high-pressure synthetic techniques to prepare new metastable intermetallic phases and later characterize them with an array of diffraction, microscopy, spectroscopic, and computational techniques. To me, nothing compares to the excitement of being the first person to create a chemical bond between two elements that were never seen to chemically contact before, and being the one who gets to explore what that piece of new matter harbors.”
As the subject of this Graduate Student Spotlight, Ira shares the best vacation she’s ever taken, the small thing that makes her day better, the career she’d choose if she wasn’t pursuing Chemistry, and more!
- What’s the most interesting documentary you’ve ever watched?
Good Night Oppy.
- Who are three of your favorite fictional characters?
I think they are Smoke Bellew by Jack London, Captain Nemo by Jules Verne, and L’Ingénu (The Naïve One) by Voltaire.
- What is the best vacation you’ve ever taken?
It was a vacation in Egypt I went for with my family when I was a teenager. It’s memorable because of all of the wealth of the Red Sea coral reefs that contrast so much with the roaring emptiness of Sahara. It was quite an experience to enter the Pharaohs’ tombs in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor too.
- What are some small things that make your day better?
Listening to some good music. I am a big classical and alternative rock fan.
- What could you give a 40-minute presentation on with absolutely no preparation?
Optical phenomena of gemstones, such as iridescence, opalescence, cat’s eye, asterism, etc., though I guess it is about my broader passion to everything that is colored structurally rather than electronically.
- What is special about the place you grew up?
It is a small town of barely twenty thousand people, yet it is the birthplace to a King of Poland, a Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry, author of the national anthem of a country in Middle East, and a world-famous photographer of New York City.
- What irrational fear do you have?
I am afraid of mantes.
- What chance encounter changed your life forever?
It was Professor Daan Frenkel who once was the Head of the Department of Chemistry of the University of Cambridge in the UK.
- If you could pick any career other than the one you’ve chosen, what would it be?
I would’ve been an aviatrix of some kind! I am not sure whether I’d fly the planes or build them though.
- Where is the most interesting place you’ve been?
I would say it is the Trinity College of the University of Cambridge in the UK. The Wren Library walks you through the day-to-day work and life of scientific giants such as Isaac Newton, Lord Rayleigh, Srinivasa Ramanujan with its display of their handwritten notes (or even curls of their hair!). It feels like a revelation of souls of those great scholars, and that is something unbelievably intimate to witness.
- What invention doesn’t get a lot of love, but has greatly improved the world?
I guess it’s the nucleic acid technologies. The impact they had on criminology and medicine is grossly underestimated in my opinion.
- What is your secret talent?
I like to cook and experiment with recipes!
- What is the darkest movie you’ve ever seen?
It might be Shutter Island. Too bad the plot takes place in Boston Harbor…
- What skill would you like to master?
I would like to learn to read sheet music and play by it. I feel limited only being able to play the guitar by tabs.
- What bends your mind every time you think about it?
How unexpected the life is and how one never knows what the following day would bring or where it would take them.
- Where are some unusual places you’ve been?
I’ve been to many large research facilities, such as synchrotrons and colliders, that are unusual for all the extraordinary people who work and make discoveries there. I think the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, and the SPring-8 synchrotron in Hyogo, Japan, definitely stand out in my memory.
- What would be the best thing you could reasonably expect to find in a cave?
An ammonite!
- Who would be in the lineup for your ideal music festival?
Elton John, Billy Joel, Keane, Imagine Dragons, Metallica.
- What animal or plant do you think should be renamed, and what should the new name be?
I think the Picasso Bug should be properly called Zulu Hud Bug.
- Where was the most amazing sunset you have ever seen?
It was a sunset above Lake Geneva that I saw from the mountains in Montreux, Switzerland, in 2022.
