Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Awards More Than $6 Million; 118 Early Career Researchers to Receive Prestigious Sloan Research Fellowships

NEW YORK, March 3 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is pleased to announce the selection of 118 outstanding early career scientists, mathematicians, and economists as Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellows.  The winners are faculty members at 56 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada who are conducting 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 2010 Sloan Research Fellows."

The Sloan Research Fellowships have been awarded since 1955, initially in only three scientific fields: physics, chemistry, and mathematics. Since then, 38 Sloan Research Fellows have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in their fields; 57 have received the National Medal of Science; and 14 have been awarded the Fields Medal, the top honor in mathematics. Although Sloan Research Fellowships in economics began only in 1983, Sloan Fellows have subsequently accounted for 9 of the 14 winners of the John Bates Clark Medal, generally considered the most prestigious 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.  For a complete list of winners, visit:  http://www.sloan.org/pressroom/item/458/2010-sloan-research-fellowships.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a philanthropic, not-for-profit grantmaking institution that supports original research and broad-based education in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and economic performance.  For more information visit www.sloan.org.

SOURCE Alfred P. Sloan Foundation