Professor Howard Katz, the chair of the department of materials science and engineering has wanted to be a scientist since he was a child who collected rocks as a hobby.
“My first major childhood hobby was rock collecting. I would go to a very special place near where I used to live in New Jersey,” Katz said. When he was around the age of 10 years old, he would travel from his hometown in Essex County to Northern New Jersey to look at minerals and stones unique to the old mine town.
After graduating high school, Katz set his standards high.
“I went to MIT first, and I really knew I wanted to study chemistry,” Professor Katz said. Even though his father was a biology professor, Katz preferred chemistry to biology due to its logic.
“Chemistry made sense, it’s systematic and to me, chemistry had more logic and was easier to predict,” he said.
After graduating from MIT with stellar grades, he attended UCLA and returned to the East Coast with a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry. For 22 of the following years, Professor Katz worked at Bell Laboratories in N.J. At Bell Lab, he conducted experiments and research, many of which focused on the optical fibers.
“I made some new chemical compounds and I also discovered there was a new kind of organic material which can be a semi-conductor,” Katz said.
Organic materials tend to be cheaper and more flexible than other scientific materials, so they are very useful for scientists and researchers. The popular technological feat of the electronic reader can be traced back to the labs in the N.J. institution in which Professor Katz participated.
“I actually worked on very [the] first kindle prototype of kindle,” Professor Katz said. “I had that project at Bell Lab that, using [a] kind of transistor, could switch black and white marks, yet they could not make letters yet.”
Coupled with these advancements in science, Bell Laboratories began to decline as a place of research. Around when Katz was conducting his research, during the ‘60s and ‘70s, Bell Labs had established thirteen different locations in N.J. Today, only three remain.
“Opportunities were declining there, and I personally wanted to do bigger things,” Professor Katz said. The new businesses, which financially supported Bell Labs, were unable to fund the expanding and progressing research.
“I really became a material scientist in the last 15 years because more and more of what I did was physical,” Professor Katz said.
As his research began to delve into the study of solid substances, such as metals, plastics and semi-conductors, Professor Katz looked to the universities for his next career, one of which was Hopkins.
“I was attracted to [Hopkins] the moment I first came. And I am very happy to end up at Hopkins,” he said. Katz loved the atmosphere of the department of materials science and engineering, and moreover the students.
“All of us in [the] materials science department want to act as mentors to the students we get to know,” Katz said. He liked that the small classes, ranging from 10-20 students give students the opportunity to know the professors and easily exchange new ideas.
Current research being conducted by the department and its students deal with transistors, which are electronic devices that are responsible for the logic in modern computers.
Katz and his students are aiming to construct these transistors using different organic molecules, not silicon, which is the typical substance of the devices.
“Recently we came up with ways to make them work with less voltage and power and so that is relevant if you want to conserve energy and develop molecules,” Katz said.
He feels that this research conducted at Hopkins is exactly what telephone and communication companies want to see on applicants’ résumés.
While the research prepares Hopkins materials science and engineering majors for internships and jobs, Katz thinks that the department can do even more.
“I am trying to emphasize certain directions, make more connections to energy and technology companies,” he said.
He hopes that this will further increase the amount of opportunities and internships available.
While Katz is dedicated to the sciences and his work at Hopkins, he emphasized the fact that professors, like students, have interests besides their jobs.
“I play cello and piano . . . started piano in kindergarten and cello in fourth grade,” he said.
He explained that whenever he has writer’s block or is unable to coherently put his words onto paper, he sits down to play the piano. His favorite pianists, whose music he plays whenever he is in this state, are Chopin and Brahms.
“I feel it’s the best combo of beauty and artistic pleasure,” Katz said.
