Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announces recipients of 2015 Sloan Research Fellowships

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is pleased to announce the selection of 126 outstanding U.S. and Canadian researchers as recipients of the 2015 Sloan Research Fellowships. Awarded annually since 1955, the fellowships honor early-career scientists and scholars whose achievements and potential identify them as rising stars, the next generation of scientific leaders. Fellows receive $50,000 to further their research.

"The beginning of a one's career is a crucial time in the life of a scientist. Building a lab, attracting funding in an increasingly competitive environment, and securing tenure all depend on doing innovative, original high-quality work and having that work recognized," said Dr. Paul L. Joskow, President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. "For more than 50 years the Sloan Foundation has been proud to celebrate the achievements of extraordinary young scientists who are pushing the boundaries of scientific knowledge."

Past Sloan Research Fellows have gone on to notable careers and include such intellectual luminaries as physicist Richard Feynman and game theorist John Nash. Since the beginning of the program in 1955, 43 fellows have received a Nobel Prize in their respective field, 16 have won the Fields Medal in mathematics, 65 have received the National Medal of Science, and 14 have won the John Bates Clark Medal in economics, including every winner since 2007. More information on the achievements of former Sloan Research Fellows can be found at www.sloan.org/sloan-research-fellowships.

"Over the years, the Sloan Research Fellowships have become some of the most sought-after fellowships available to early-career scholars," says Daniel L. Goroff, Vice President at the Sloan Foundation and Director of the Sloan Research Fellowship program. "Becoming a Sloan Research Fellow means joining a long and distinguished tradition of scientific explorers who have gone on to make the most meaningful and significant discoveries."

Hailing from 57 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, the 2015 Sloan Research Fellows represent a diverse variety of research interests. Fellows this year include:

• A synthetic biologist who has developed a revolutionary new method to engineer precise genetic changes in micro-organisms;
• An ocean scientist who examines how human activity shapes the diversity and behavioral dynamics of reef ecosystems;
• A mathematician who is devising new algorithms that pull information out of compressed signals;
• A chemist who is working on ways to deliver drugs and other therapeutic molecules into heretofore inaccessible regions of mammalian cells;
• A computer scientist who is designing software to help inhibit state-level censorship of the Internet;
• An economist who studies the factors that drive innovation in health care;
• A neuroscientist who studies the neuronal basis of depression and how to develop drugs that address it without side effects;
• An astronomer who studies the properties of far-away exoplanets.

Awarded in eight scientific and technical fields—chemistry, computer science, economics, mathematics, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, neuroscience, ocean sciences, and physics—the Sloan Research Fellowship Program runs in close cooperation with the scientific community. Candidates must be nominated by their fellow scientists and winning fellows are selected by an independent panel of senior scholars on the basis of a candidate's independent research accomplishments, creativity, and potential to become a leader in his or her field.

SOURCE Alfred P. Sloan Foundation