CAREER awards are the NSF’s most prestigious awards for new faculty members. They recognize and support “early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who are most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century.”

Professor Rowley’s research project is titled “Model reduction for control of fluids.” The project will address specific model reduction techniques that include balanced truncation and proper orthogonal decomposition, and symmetry reduction methods from geometric mechanics.

The education components include developing an exchange program with Brazil to promote engineering education in an international setting. In addition, a new outreach program will help local elementary school teachers introduce engineering into K-6 classrooms by organizing undergraduates to volunteer their time to assist with the technical aspects of engineering projects.

In addition to receiving a CAREER award, Professor Rowley was featured in the February 2004 issue of IEEE Control Systems Magazine. He joined the SEAS faculty in fall 2001. He received both his M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology.

Professor Wood joined Princeton in 2001. His research program is centered on the application of genetic manipulation and protein engineering to the development of improved biotechnologies, including bioseparations, biosensors, and novel routes to drug discovery.

Professor Wood’s CAREER-funded research project is titled “Protein switches for molecular biotechnology.” The objective of this research is to develop a new family of ligand-triggered, self-splicing, and self-cleaving proteins with a wide variety of potential applications.

The education components include providing students with information and skills to allow them to make greater contributions at the interface between engineering and biology, a high school intern program, the use of learning style evaluations in an introductory engineering course, and a seminar series in applied biotechnology.

Weiss makes Top 10 list


The research of Ron Weiss, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, was named among the 10 emerging technologies that will change the world by Technology Review Magazine.

In exploring the juncture between biology and computer engineering, Professor Weiss has undertaken the ambitious task of “programming” living cells. He does so by engineering the cell’s DNA to manufacture designated proteins and uses the concentrations of these proteins as “computational signals.” He eventually hopes to do the same type of modeling of tissue-specific human stem cells, instructing them on how to become different types of cells and, perhaps eventually, whole organs.

Shvartsman selected as Sloan Fellow


Stanislav Shvartsman *99, assistant professor of chemical engineering and associated faculty member with the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, has been named an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow.

Sloan Research Fellowships recognize young scientists who show exceptional promise of making fundamental contributions to new knowledge in chemistry, computational, and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience, and physics. Sloan Research Fellowships are among the most competitive awards for young faculty in science and engineering, and carry a $40,000 grant to be used in a flexible and largely unrestricted manner so that recipients can pursue the lines of inquiry that are the most compelling to them.

Professor Shvartsman joined the Princeton faculty in 2001. He is interested in the development of quantitative models for cell communication in tissues.