Eva Zurek, University at Buffalo assistant professor of chemistry, has received a Sloan Research Fellowship, which provides leading early-career investigators with a two-year, $50,000 award to conduct research of their choice.
The Sloan Research Fellowships aim to “stimulate fundamental research by early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise,” according to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which disburses the awards. Fellows, who were notified of their selection on Feb. 14, were chosen by a committee of distinguished scholars.
Zurek, a theoretical chemist, is one of 126 researchers in the United States and Canada to receive the recognition this year.
She is a member of UB’s recently designated New York State Center of Excellence in Materials Informatics, and her work focuses on using supercomputers to predict the structures and properties of novel materials.
Particular interests include modeling how organic molecules interact with the surfaces of metals, and modeling the catalytic reactions that result in plastics production. This research could lead to such technological advances as better organic light-emitting diodes for smartphones and TV screens, and new types of plastics that possess unique and desirable properties.
