July 26, 2011

UC Santa Barbara Scientists Receive National Science Foundation CAREER Awards

George Foulsham

Four assistant professors at UC Santa Barbara have been awarded National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER awards.

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program offers the NSF's most prestigious awards in support of the early career development activities of those teacher-scholars who are most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century. The awards provide a financial stipend to support research activity for a period of five years.

The UCSB recipients are:

Peter Alagona, history and environmental studies, for research on the University of California's Natural Reserve System and the role of biological field stations in American environmental history.

Rouslan Krechetnikov, mechanical engineering, for research on self-sustained motions of interfaces: dynamics, instabilities, and singularities.

Javier Read de Alaniz, chemistry, for research on advances in the cascade rearrangement of furylcarbinols for complex molecular synthesis. In addition, Read de Alaniz will work with outreach programs at UCSB in an attempt to overcome the lack of minority representation in the sciences. He will serve as the faculty adviser for the University of California Leadership Excellence through Advanced Degrees (UC LEADS) program.

Luke Theogarajan, electrical and computer engineering, for research on integrating CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductors) processing technology for sensing electronics, with a versatile single-molecule detector, the nanopore.

"Every year the NSF makes five-year CAREER awards to some of the best and brightest researchers in the country early in their academic career," said Michael Witherell, UCSB's vice chancellor for research. "It gives the recipients a chance to concentrate more on doing great research and less on writing proposals. We are pleased that, once again, assistant professors from UCSB had such great success in this very competitive program."

According to the NSF, CAREER awardees are selected on the basis of creative proposals that effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization. The plans are expected to build a firm foundation for a lifetime of integrated contributions to research and education.

The NSF promotes and advances scientific progress in the United States by competitively awarding grants and cooperative agreements for research and education in the sciences, mathematics, and engineering.

About UC Santa Barbara

The University of California, Santa Barbara is a leading research institution that also provides a comprehensive liberal arts learning experience. Our academic community of faculty, students, and staff is characterized by a culture of interdisciplinary collaboration that is responsive to the needs of our multicultural and global society. All of this takes place within a living and learning environment like no other, as we draw inspiration from the beauty and resources of our extraordinary location at the edge of the Pacific Ocean.