CAS Valedictorian Yael Elmatad Was Born to Attend NYU

By Jason Hollander

Because she was born at the NYU Medical Center and spent the first nine years of her life living on Bleecker Street, it might seem that College of Arts and Science (CAS) valedictorian Yael Elmatad was predestined to attend NYU. But the daughter of Israeli immigrants didn’t just come to the University because it was familiar; she came because of her passion for theoretical chemistry.

After moving to Fairlawn, N.J. and enrolling in a competitive science and mathematics high school in nearby Hackensack, Elmatad discovered chemistry when she took her first class at age 14. She developed such an affinity for the subject that she declared it her major during her first week at NYU. Although she will be heading to UC-Berkeley next year to pursue her Ph.D. in physical chemistry, her experience with the science is not what most would imagine. Elmatad does not mix chemicals in a lab and she never wears a white coat. Rather, she spends all her time testing equations on her computer.

“Being an experimental chemist is sort of a skill, like someone who is good at singing,” says Elmatad. “I don’t have that knack, but I do have a knack for thinking about the theories behind those experiments.”

Calling it a “knack” might be an understatement. During her NYU career Elmatad has been named a CAS Honors Scholar, a Sokol Scholar, a Goldwater Scholar, a Sweeney Scholar, and a Beckman Scholar, and has received a Gates Cambridge Scholarship, which she turned down, preferring to study in California rather than England. She recently won an award from Iota Sigma Pi for the “best senior woman chemistry student in the country” and her undergraduate research has led her to give presentations and publish papers with professors in the NYU chemistry department.

“I just really like numbers,” says Elmatad, who incorporates physics, computer science, mathematics, and chemistry into her research. “I really like solving problems that haven’t been figured out yet.”

But her achievements don’t stop when her computer shuts down. Elmatad is president of NYU’s Model U.N. Team, which competes at the intercollegiate level, and started a program at University Neighborhood High School on the Lower East Side where she tutors students in chemistry and other scientific subjects. She also finds time to play the flute and guitar when not pursuing her latest interest, photography, which she compares to science.

“Photographic images appear to be objective, but they are skewed by bias,” she says. “There’s always an issue of perception, and the same thing happens in science. The scientist inevitably makes assumptions because science, like everything, is constructed by culture.”

It’s not surprising that she points to Galileo Galilei as one of her heroes. The Italian physicist and astronomer, she says, paved the way for scientists like her.

“He invented the scientific method,” says Elmatad. “He was the father of the idea that we need to ask questions. And he stood up for science when no one else around him would.”