Five members of the Princeton Engineering faculty received 2017 Junior Faculty Awards on Thursday, May 18, for early-career accomplishments and clarity of exposition in teaching and research.

They include Assistant Professors Claire White and Jose Avalos, who both won the Howard B. Wentz, Jr. Award. The award was established to attract and retain the most talented junior faculty members in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

White joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment in 2013. Her research group focuses on investigating the long-term behavior of low-carbon dioxide concrete, and the mineralization processes during carbon capture and storage.

Avalos joined the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and the Andlinger Center in 2015. His research interests use biotechnology to address important problems in sustainable energy, the environment, industry, and human health.

Assistant Professors Arvind Narayanan and Prateek Mittal both won the E. Lawrence Keyes, Jr./Emerson Electric Co. Faculty Advancement Award. The award supports faculty members who have established vibrant teaching and research programs early in their careers at Princeton.

Narayanan, of the Department of Computer Science, joined the faculty in 2012. He studies information privacy and security, with a side interest in technology policy. Mittal, of Electrical Engineering, joined the faculty in 2013. His interests include building secure and privacy preserving communication systems.

Julia Mikhailova, who joined the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in 2013, received the Alfred Rheinstein Award. Her research interests are in theory and experimental studies of intense light-matter interactions. The award goes to “young instructors in the School of Engineering who have shown exceptional promise, and to assist said instructors to further their work in their chosen fields.”