Meet the User: Anita Broach

The National Center for Earth and Environmental Nanotechnology Infrastructure (NanoEarth) frequently partners with industry professionals for nanotechnology research. NanoEarth would like to highlight Anita T. Broach, Ph.D. as the next partner in the Meet the User Series. Broach is the Founder and Scientific Consultant at CSI: Create. Solve. Innovate. LLC, and Chief Scientific Officer of Air-Clenz Systems, LLC and NeuroRays, LLC.

Anita T. Broach, Ph.D. aspired to enter into a career where math, chemistry, and science knowledge are being combined and applied. Her friends fell into liberal arts, law, and economics, while she found a love with chemical engineering and various material types. She describes taking “the road less traveled by others”, reflecting on Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken”, and is grateful for her decision back then, as she still enjoys her profession intertwined with chemical engineering and material science research today! Throughout her career, success and failure have taught her important lessons, with a failure being a “better teacher” in quick recovery and moving forward. She reflects on Winston Churchill’s quote, “Success is not final; failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts,” when moving through a setback.

Anita T. Broach, Ph.D. has an extensive scientific academic background. Broach obtained a Master’s of Science in New Polymer Materials from St Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, N. Macedonia, and both a Master’s of Science in Materials Science and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York. Early in her career, she held New Product Development Scientist, Senior Scientist and Application Scientist roles within small start-up companies and global companies. This led her to founding her own consulting company, CSI: Create. Solve. Innovate. LLC in 2015, offering scientific and technical consulting services.

In 2010, Broach’s research, and later on the consulting work, led her to the Nanoscale Characterization and Fabrication Laboratory (NCFL). She was able to characterize the nanostructures in the novel materials she worked on and perform competitive assessment for her clients. She credits NCFL Instrument Specialist Steve McCartney and NCFL Administration Susette Sowers with being instrumental in her training and organization.

There are many projects that Dr Broach was involved in and required extensive use of SEM and XPS instruments at NCFL, and which projects yielded a strong intellectual property (IP) for companies that she worked for.

One project was related to electronic control of the tint of eyeglasses’ lenses, switching them from normal lenses to sunglasses and back, on demand by touch on the eyeglasses’ temple. The project resulted in the first all-solid-state electrochromic lenses with fast response time and high contrast (the best performance at the time) utilizing nanometer-scale film structures and coatings (Figures 1a and 1b). SEM images of the nano-scale structures of thin electrochromic films, WOx and NiOy, fabricated and characterized within this project, are given in Figure 1c. The oxygen deficiency in the WOx films, needed for a better electrochromic performance was determined by XPS (due to the proprietary nature of the project, the actual stoichiometry of the films is not presented here). 

Another project involved nanometer-thin coatings, some of them characterized at NCFL, contributed the first technology for eye protection from short-wavelength blue light, which can lead to age-related macular degeneration (AMD) - a leading cause of blindness in the developed world. The technology was licensed to Essilor, Paris, and is now used in their commercial product Crizal Prevencia®.

One of Broach’s favorite projects has been related to development of sustainable and biodegradable sorbent materials for environmental pollutants, such as heavy metals and greenhouse gasses. These sorbent materials include mycelium (Figure 2a) and various agricultural and industrial by-products (Figure 2b). The project started as a student project sponsored by NanoEarth and was partially executed with the help of NanoSafe team (now part of ITA International).

Currently, Broach is involved with several projects and companies, ranging from those solving the problem of cross-infections in multi-person indoor environments (Air-Clenz Systems, LLC), to treating ophthalmic and neurological  disorders with light (NeuroRays, LLC). She is also trying to shed light on sustainable diets, such as Mediterranean Diet, as a potential solution to the global challenge of food insecurity. There are other companies that she is involved with and are not mentioned here due to the proprietary nature of their technologies.

As a scientific and technical consultant with CSI: Create. Solve. Innovate. LLC, Broach offers services related to development of proprietary materials and formulations, new products and technologies, proof-of-concept and prototyping, failure analysis, new ideas’ positioning, competitive landscaping, etc. With a wide range of innovative projects, she feels fortunate that she can apply her engineering and materials science knowledge and experience, while still enjoying day-to day research activities.

In her free time, Broach relaxes by challenging her competitive 12-year-old daughter Bella to board and card games. As they are both persistent to win, these games help teach her daughter on how to accept loss with grace and enjoy the wins with humility.

She has a personal goal of creating more patience in her life and work. She likes projects to move quickly, and sometimes, has to take a step back and think of a new approach. Her current career goal is to learn more about Intellectual Property (IP) Protection. As she has been named inventor and co-inventor on more than 55 patents and pending patents, she aspires to learn the legal language for drafting patent provisionals and applications. She is a life-long learner, enjoying reading, exploring, and expanding her knowledge.

Her advice for young researchers is inspired by those, who have proven themselves throughout history. In particular, she encourages researchers, and everyone around her, to:

• Stretch outside your comfort zone, regardless of the academic background or training, because “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less,” (Marie Curie).
• Take risks, it is worth, even if you fail. One day you will agree with Nelson Mandela “I never lose. I either win or I learn”.
• Find your niche and be different, because there is room for everyone. “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken” (Oscar Wilde).
• Be persistent and determined in accomplishing your long-term goals, as Thomas Edison has said: “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time”.