Four Duke Faculty Named Sloan Fellows
Award assists young researchers in early stage of careers
Friday, February 15, 2008
Durham, NC -- Four Duke faculty members are among 118 outstanding young scientists, mathematicians, and economists named Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellows by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Mauro Maggioni, assistant professor of mathematics and computer science; Katherine Franz, assistant professor of chemistry, R. Alison Adcock, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral science and Vincent Conitzer, assistant professor of computer science and economics.
Sloan honors faculty members who conduct research at the frontiers of physics, chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics and neuroscience.
“The Sloan Research Fellowships support the work of exceptional young researchers early in their academic careers, and often at pivotal stages in their work,” says Paul L. Joskow, President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “I am proud of the Foundation’s rich history in providing the resources and flexibility necessary for young researchers to enhance their scholarship, and I look forward to the future achievements of the 2008 Sloan Research Fellows.”
The Sloan Research Fellowships have been awarded since 1955, initially in only three scientific fields: physics, chemistry, and mathematics. Since then, 35 Sloan Research Fellows have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in their fields; and 14 have received the Fields Medal, the top honor in mathematics. Although Sloan Research Fellowships in economics began only in 1983, since then Sloan Fellows have accounted for 8 of the 13 winners of the John Bates Clark Medal, generally considered the top honor for young economists.
Grants of $50,000 for a two-year period are administered by each Fellow’s institution. Once chosen, Sloan Research Fellows are free to pursue whatever lines of inquiry are of most interest to them, and they are permitted to employ Fellowship funds in a wide variety of ways to further their research aims.
