Five faculty members were awarded Sloan Research Fellowships for 2008.
Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded every year by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to stimulate fundamental research by early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise. The 118 winners for this year were chosen from more than 600 nominations from 64 colleges in the Unites States and Canada. The two-year fellowships provide flexible funds to support each professor’s current and future research.
The five faculty members are:
Xiaoqin Li, assistant professor of physics, who studies ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopy in condensed matter, quantum dynamics and control in nanostructures.
Christopher Bielawski, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, who is broadly interested in synthesizing, studying and applying unique organic and organometallic polymers that can be used in electronic devices, drug delivery systems and self-healing materials.
Hans Hofmann, assistant professor of integrative biology, who focuses his research on understanding the molecular and hormonal mechanisms that underlie social behavior and its evolution.
Lara Mahal, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, who merges chemistry and biology to create new methods for the study of glycosylation (the addition of sugars to protein and lipid molecules). The methods include the creation and use of new probes for glycosylation, cellular sensors and array technologies.
Natasa Pavlovic, assistant professor of mathematics, who focuses her research on partial differential equations and harmonic analysis.
Since the establishment of the Sloan Research Fellowship, 35 fellows have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in their fields and 14 have received the Fields Medal, the top honor in mathematics.
