Member Spotlight: Stuart Stock, PhD

Name:

Title:

Research Professor, Cell & Developmental Biology Department

Year joined Northwestern:

2001

Can you say a few words about yourself and your work at Northwestern?

My work focuses on the microstructures of bone and other mineralized tissues and on the interactions of mineral nanoparticles and collagen matrix of tissues such as bone and shark vertebra. I mainly use microComputed Tomography, a high resolution version of the clinical CT scanners, and position resolved x-ray scattering and much of this work is done at the Advanced Photon Source at the nearby Argonne National Laboratory.

What is something people tend to misunderstand about your work/research topic?

I think people, including specialists in bone biology, tend to think that we understand how bone works as a mechanical structure whereas this is really not the case. Too often “received knowledge” widely accepted in the field is just plain wrong.

What do you find fascinating/interesting about your field of work?

In my work, I am constantly surprised by where the research leads. I will have ideas about where a certain line of inquiry will lead; often it turns out that I have discovered something entirely unexpected and even more interesting.

Do you have any hobbies?

My wife and I are partners in ballroom dancing. We do three to six solo performances every year, and I do our choreography. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu9_gzyaf68

If you could collaborate with (or meet) any scientist, living or deceased, who would it be and why?

I would probably like to meet Benjamin Franklin, the first prominent American scientist.