This year, five Boston College faculty members have received early-career awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF) recognizing and supporting their commitment to scholarship and education.
Five assistant professors - Steve Bruner (chemistry), Vidya Madhavan (physics), David Martin (computer science), Noah Snyder (geology and geophysics) and Stella Yu, a Clare Booth Luce assistant professor of computer science - have been awarded this high distinction.
These Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) awards are given to junior faculty members who display potential for leadership in their field and effectively incorporate research and education in their work.
The awards also include substantial grants. The five professors collectively have been awarded $2.5 million in NSF CAREER funding to support their research, which they will receive over a span of five years.
The achievement of earning five CAREER awards this year is notable, since prior to this, BC faculty had only received a total of five CAREER awards over the past 12 years and never more than two in a single year. Vice Provost for Research Kevin Bedell told The Chronicle that this puts BC in the company of top-rated national research institutions and is a significant achievement not only for the individual professors but for BC.
"It's truly a reflection of the quality of our faculty and the increased emphasis we as an institution are placing on research and education," said Bedell.
Each individual grant will support the faculty member's research project and its wider educational application. Some recipients, such as Madhavan, hope to use their research to increase both the number of students interested in and education about their fields of knowledge.
Madhavan received her CAREER award for her work in the field of physics, and will use her $500,000 grant to study magnetic semiconductors that carry spin-polarized electrons.
"Spin" is a property that electrons have in addition to charge, and it is the microscopic, quantum mechanical equivalent of a classical, macroscopic magnet.
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