UBC Rising Stars in Probability, Nano Structures Receive US Sloan Fellowships

Two UBC Science researchers have received 2010 Sloan Research Fellowships, a US-based award that recognizes North America’s outstanding early career scientists, mathematicians and economists.

Joshua Folk, an expert in the physics of nano structures, and Omer Angel, an expert in probability, are among seven Canadians awarded the fellowship this year.

The New York-based Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awarded $50,000 each to 118 outstanding young researchers from 56 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. Fellows are conducting research in physics, chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics and neuroscience.

Folk, an assistant professor with Physics and Astronomy, holds a Canada Research Chair and leads UBC’s quantum devices group. He completed his PhD at Stanford University in 2003 and was awarded a Pappalardo Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Angel, an assistant professor with the Department of Math, received his PhD from the Weizmann Institute under the supervision of Itai Benjamini and Oded Schramm. His research interests include probability theory, percolation, random graphs, random walks, particle processes and scaling limits.

The Sloan Foundation was founded in 1934 by Alfred P. Sloan Jr., then-President and CEO of General Motors.

Sloan Foundation www.sloan.org