July 23, 2009
Four UW faculty win Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers
Four members of the UW faculty have received the 2009 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor given by the U.S. Government to early-career scientists and engineers.
Michael Hochberg, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering; Benjamin Smith, a principal investigator with the Applied Physics Laboratory’s Polar Science Center; Harmit Singh Malik, a researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and an affiliate assistant professor in the UW’s Department of Genome Sciences; and Ulrike Peters, a researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a research associate professor of epidemiology at the UW School of Public Health, were among the 100 recipients who were announced this month.
The awards will be presented at a fall ceremony at the White House. Each recipient also will receive up to five years of federal research funding.
Michael Hochberg works in nanophotonics, a field that uses light photons rather than electrons to transmit and process information. Using photons allows the possibility of creating tiny computing chips that use less power and transmit information more quickly than today’s electronic devices. Hochberg directs the UW’s Nanophotonics Laboratory and is currently installing a multimillion-dollar electron beam lithography tool that will be used to create prototypes for nanotechnology designs (see our news release here). In 2007 he was awarded an Air Force Office of Sponsored Research Young Investigators Program award. He was nominated for the PECASE award by the Department of Defense.
Hochberg arrived at the UW in 2007. He earned his undergraduate degree in physics, and his master’s and doctoral degrees in applied physics from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Benjamin Smith was named for his work on processes that control the large glaciers that drain ice from Antarctica and Greenland into the ocean. His research interests include building new instruments to measure Arctic snow and ice; interpreting satellite data of glaciers; and making computer models to explain glaciers’ growth, melt and speed. He was nominated for the PECASE award by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Smith earned his undergraduate degree in physics from the University of Chicago, a master’s degree in geophysics from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and his doctorate in geophysics from the UW in 2005. He joined the Applied Physics Laboratory in 2007 as a postdoctoral researcher and in 2008 he was named a principal investigator at the Polar Science Center.
Harmit Singh Malik is an affiliate assistant professor in the UW Medical Center’s Department of Genome Sciences and an associate member of the Hutchinson Center’s Basic Sciences Division. Malik’s research is on genetic conflict; recent work has studied the interaction of viruses and hosts in order to better understand the immune system. Earlier this year Malik was appointed a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Scientist. He was nominated for the PECASE award by the National Science Foundation.
A native of India, Malik received his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai. He completed his doctoral work in molecular evolutionary biology at the University of Rochester in Rochester, N.Y. before joining the Hutchinson Center faculty in 2003.
Ulrike Peters is a research associate professor of epidemiology at the UW School of Public Health and an associate member of the Hutchinson Center’s Cancer Prevention Program. She studies the link between nutrition and cancer prevention — particularly how the interplay of genetics and nutrition affect cancer risk. Peters is also currently looking for genetic links to colon and breast cancer. She was nominated for the PECASE award by the National Institutes of Health.
A native of Germany, Peters received her master’s and doctoral degrees in nutrition at the University of Kiel, and she received her master’s in public health in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She joined the Hutchinson Center faculty in 2004.
The Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists was established in 1996. Awardees are selected on the basis of two criteria: Pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology, and a commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education, or community outreach.
“The PECASE awards are one of the highest honors in the country for early career researchers, and receiving four of these in one year is a major tribute to the quality of our faculty,” said Mary Lidstrom, UW vice provost for research. “These are very impressive individuals and the UW is enriched by their accomplishments.”
Nine federal departments or agencies nominate young scientists and engineers for the awards. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy makes the final selection.
“These extraordinarily gifted young scientists and engineers represent the best in our country,” President Obama said in a statement. “With their talent, creativity, and dedication, I am confident that they will lead their fields in new breakthroughs and discoveries and help us use science and technology to lift up our nation and our world.”
