Twenty-one University of California faculty have been named 2024 Sloan Research fellows, a prestigious award that recognizes rising stars among early-career scientists and scholars, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announced today (Feb. 20).
More Sloan fellows are affiliated with UC than any other institution granted the awards this year. UC’s fellowship-winning faculty are spread across 7 campuses, as shown in the table below.
| 2024 Sloan fellows | |
|---|---|
| UC Berkeley | 9 |
| UC Santa Barbara | 4 |
| UC San Diego | 3 |
| UC Santa Cruz | 2 |
| UC Davis | 1 |
| UC Merced | 1 |
| UC San Francisco | 1 |
| Total fellows | 21 |
Winners receive a two-year, $75,000 award which can be used flexibly to advance their research.
Bestowed this year to 126 of the brightest young scientists across the U.S. and Canada, Sloan Research fellowships are some of the most competitive and prestigious awards available to early-career researchers, honoring their creativity, innovation and research accomplishments. They are also often seen as a marker of the quality of an institution’s science faculty and proof of an institution’s success in attracting the most promising junior researchers to its ranks.
“Sloan Research fellowships are extraordinarily competitive awards involving the nominations of the most inventive and impactful early-career scientists across the U.S. and Canada,” said Adam F. Falk, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “We look forward to seeing how fellows take leading roles shaping the research agenda within their respective fields.”
Counting this year’s awardees, 753 faculty from the University of California have received a Sloan Research fellowship since the award’s inception in 1955. The award is prestigious in part because so many past fellows have gone on to become distinguished figures in science. To date, 57 fellows have received a Nobel Prize, 71 have won the National Medal of Science, 17 have won the Fields Medal in mathematics, and 23 have won the John Bates Clark Medal in economics.
The awards are open to scholars in seven different scientific and technical fields — chemistry, computer science, Earth system science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience, and physics — and nominations are made by fellow scientists. Winners are selected by independent panels of senior scholars on the basis of a candidate’s research accomplishments, creativity and potential to become a scientific pathbreaker.
This year’s UC Sloan fellows are:
University of California, Berkeley
Kwabena Bediako, chemistry
Meng-meng Fu, neuroscience
Nika Haghtalab, computer science
Michael Lindsey, mathematics
Dipti Nayak, Earth system science
Geoff Penington, physics
Penny Wieser, Earth system science
Preeya Khanna, neuroscience
Yakun Sophia Shao, computer science
University of California, Davis
Theanne N. Griffith, neuroscience
University of California, Merced
Shahar Sukenik, chemistry
University of California, San Diego
Vineet Augustine, neuroscience
Abdoulaye Ndao, physics
Monique L. Smith, neuroscience
University of California, San Francisco
Vijay Mohan K Namboodiri, neuroscience
University of California, Santa Barbara
Chenhao Jin, physics
Xiao Luo, physics
Vojtech Vlcek, chemistry
Yang Yang, chemistry
University of California, Santa Cruz
Roxanne Beltran, Earth system science
Jacqueline M. Kimmey, neuroscience
