SUNY Chancellor Congratulates 18 SUNY Faculty for National Awards Recognizing Excellence

July 26, 2019

CAREER Award Recipients Win $9.6 Million in Research Funds in Diverse STEM Fields

Albany – Chancellor Kristina M. Johnson today announced that 18 faculty members at The State University of New York have received the prestigious CAREER Award, which is given by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program. The national award recognizes excellence in early career research, scholarship, and leadership in STEM fields. The awards demonstrate SUNY’s academic and research strengths in a wide range of scientific fields.

"I am proud of these faculty members, who as leaders in their fields are achieving national recognition for their outstanding work," said SUNY Chancellor Johnson. "These awards demonstrate the caliber of our faculty, provide proof of the excellent education SUNY delivers, and showcase our system as a leader in groundbreaking research."

"SUNY faculty are doing high quality research and providing our students with an exceptional educational experience," said Grace Wang, PhD, Senior Vice Chancellor of Research and Economic Development. "Congratulations to these SUNY faculty members who are making tremendous strides in their diverse fields. I look forward to seeing what they achieve as they continue to advance."

The CAREER awards support outstanding early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education, and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. The award comes with a federal grant for research and education activities for five consecutive years. The NSF grants these annual awards after a rigorous and competitive review and selection process.

The 2019 CAREER Award recipients, who represent four SUNY campuses, received a total of $9.6 million in funding. The University at Buffalo leads the group with 11 CAREER Award recipients. Stony Brook University had three recipients, and the University at Albany and Binghamton University each had two recipients.

SUNY’s 2019 CAREER Award recipients and their fields of study are:

University at Albany

Jia Sheng: Chemical Biology Approaches to Study 5-Methylcytidine Derivatives in RNA and Develop CRISPR-Tet2-Based Epitranscriptomic Tool for Gene Regulation
Mariya Zheleva: Automating the Measurement and Management of the Radio Spectrum for Future Spectrum-sharing Applications

Binghamton University

Scott Schiffres: Intermetallic Interfacial Thermal Transport for Advanced Electronics Manufacturing
Ning Zhou: Integrated Dynamic State Estimation for Monitoring Power Systems under High Uncertainty and Variation

University at Buffalo

Timothy Cook: Small Molecule Activations Enabled by Coordination-Driven Self-Assembly
Josep Jornet: Realizing Ultra-Broadband Terahertz Communication Networks
Mostafa Nouh: Metamaterials as Elastic Rectifiers: Exploiting the Non-reciprocal Mechanics of Time-Periodic Structures
Peter Qiang Liu: Unconventional Mid-infrared and Terahertz Sources Employing Graphene Plasmonics and Intersubband Transitions in Quantum Wells
Karthik Dantu: Enabling Seamless Vision Sensing in Cloud-Edge Systems
Marco Gaboardi: Formally Verified, Private, Accurate and Efficient Data Analysis
Nils Napp: Abstraction Barriers for Embodied Algorithms
Jaroslaw Zola: Scalable Software and Algorithmic Infrastructure for Probabilistic Graphical Modeling
Chi Zhou: 3D Printing of Multiscale, Multifunctional Porous Structures by Selectively Freezing Multidimensional Nanomaterials
Shi Li: Approximate Scheduling Algorithms via Mathematical Relaxations
David Lacy: Synthesis and Characterization of Manganese Complexes Toward Earth Abundant Green Catalysts

Stony Brook University

Thomas Graf: Abstract Universals in (Morpho) Syntax: Computational Characterizations and Empirical Implications
Ming-Yu Ngai: Chiral Catalysts for Enantioselective Photoredox-Catalyzed Carbon-Carbon Bond-Forming Reactions
Sergey Syritsyn: Nucleon Structure, Fundamental Symmetries and Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD)

About the State University of New York
The State University of New York is the largest comprehensive system of higher education in the United States, and more than 95 percent of all New Yorkers live within 30 miles of any one of SUNY’s 64 colleges and universities. Across the system, SUNY has four academic health centers, five hospitals, four medical schools, two dental schools, a law school, the country’s oldest school of maritime, the state’s only college of optometry, and manages one US Department of Energy National Laboratory. In total, SUNY serves about 1.4 million students amongst its entire portfolio of credit- and non-credit-bearing courses and programs, continuing education, and community outreach programs. SUNY oversees nearly a quarter of academic research in New York. Research expenditures system-wide are nearly $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2023, including significant contributions from students and faculty. There are more than three million SUNY alumni worldwide, and one in three New Yorkers with a college degree is a SUNY alum. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunities, visit suny.edu.