Three professors win Sloan Fellowships

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation named three members of the University faculty among the 104 recipients of the Sloan Research Fellowships last Wednesday. Jonathan Parker, Wilhelm Schlag and Uros Seljak were recognized for their work in economics, math and physics, respectively.

The prestigious grants are awarded to young faculty members from universities in the United States or Canada who demonstrate promise and potential to contribute to their fields. Of past recipients, 26 have later won the Nobel Prize and 13 have received the Fields Medal, the highest distinction for mathematicians.

The fellowship program annually awards $40,000 grants over a two-year period for work in chemistry, computer science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience and physics. The selection process is highly competitive — each candidate must be nominated by a department chair or senior scholar. A distinguished three-person committee for each of the six fields then selects the recipients.

This year, two of the committee members came from the University. Professors Peter Sarnak and Scott Tremaine served on the committees for mathematics and physics, respectively. According to Tremaine, the physics committee sorted through 100-150 nominations and chose the top 23 for fellowships.

"You can never exactly tell who looks great in the minor league," Tremaine said. "[The award] is based on promise rather than 20 years of research. [The program] does a very good job identifying young faculty members who will turn out to be very, very good. The fellowship is one of the major signs of a promising young faculty member."

Once a nominee receives a fellowship, he can pursue any line of inquiry in his research. The flexibility of the program is one of its chief appeals because, as Tremaine emphasized, it allows "the maximum freedom possible to develop."

"Sometimes grants come with strings attached," said one of the University winners, Jonathan Parker. "Research is much easier to do with flexibility. You can switch directions when one is or is not working."

Parker specializes in macroeconomic research including national savings, national investments and economic growth. Instead of using limited aggregate data such as the gross domestic product, inflation rates or government policies, he analyzes the predictions made across different theories.

Parker created a model incorporating risk factors in order to better predict savings behavior ovcr time in households. Existing models could not explain why the consumption of most households equaled their income until the breadwinners reached their mid-40s.

Parker also explained the recent economic growth in Chile by analyzing the policy reforms made in the 1980s. Previously, entrepreneurs could not raise funds because of an underdeveloped national banking system over a lack of a stock market. By cutting the high tax on profits, the Chilean government encouraged large investment and savings boom leading to economic growth.

Schlag, a professor in the math department, is exploring the Anderson localization, a phenomenon in which a conductor can become an insulator after the introduction of random impurities.

Schlag is a harmonic analyst by training. He plans to take a job as associate professor at the California Institute of Technology next year, where he will use the Sloan grant to continue his research.

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Before assuming his position next December, he intends to work at the Institute for Advanced Study.

The third fellow, Seljak, is a physicist who works on theoretical cosmology, the study of the creation and evolution of the universe. He combines theoretical knowledge with research observations such as the cosmic microwave background. Seljak said he plans to use the grant to support a graduate student who would assist him in his research.

"[The fellowship] is a great recognition of my work," said Seljak, "which means that other people appreciate it." The Sloan foundation was established by Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr., the president and chief executive officer of General Motors, in 1934. Over the past 46 years, its fellowship program, one of the oldest in the country, has awarded almost $92 million to more than 3,600 outstanding young scientists.