Sloan fellows named

Three faculty members – an astronomer, economist and chemist – have been named fellows by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Amy J. Barger, an assistant professor of astronomy; Philip A. Haile, an assistant professor of economics; and Shannon S. Stahl, an assistant professor of chemistry, are among 104 young scientists and economists in the United States and Canada to receive the highly competitive fellowships.

The Sloan Research Foundation Program is among the oldest of its kind in the country. Established in 1955, the program encourages and supports the research of young scholars at a critical time in their careers. Each fellowship includes an unrestricted grant of $40,000 administered over a two-year period.

Barger, a former UW–Madison undergraduate, became a member of the university’s faculty in 2000. Through her research, she is obtaining a more complete census on the star-forming galaxies and black holes in the universe and is showing how they have evolved over time. Haile, a UW–Madison faculty member since 1996, works on the synthesis of economic theory and statistical methods to learn about individual behavior from observable market outcomes, with a particular focus on auctions.

Stahl, who joined the UW–Madison faculty in 1999, is investigating catalysts that could facilitate the chemical reactions between organic molecules and oxygen so as to make them friendlier to the environment and more useful to industry.

Sloan fellows are selected from among hundreds of nominees, who are some of the most promising young scientists in the country. Twenty-eight former fellows have received Nobel Prizes.