Young faculty honored with science grants

Aaron Bradley	Robert McLeod
Li Shang	Sriram Sankaranarayanan
Rebecca Flowers	Hang (Hubert) Yin

Six University of Colorado at Boulder faculty have been selected to receive National Science Foundation CAREER Awards.

Aaron Bradley, Robert McLeod, and Li Shang in the department of electrical, computer and energy engineering were selected to receive awards, along with Sriram Sankaranarayanan of computer science, Rebecca Flowers of geological sciences, and Hang (Hubert) Yin in the department of chemistry and biochemistry.

All are assistant professors. McLeod joined the CU-Boulder faculty in 2003, Flowers and Yin in 2007, Bradley and Shang in 2008 and Sankaranarayanan in 2009.

The NSF's Faculty Early Career Development Program, or CAREER, is one of the nation's most prestigious honors directed toward young faculty. The 2010 awards, which come with a five-year grant ranging from $400,000 to $530,000, help to establish integrated research and educational activities while addressing areas of important need.

Bradley's award is aimed at developing a new model-checking technique for analyzing the properties of computational systems to achieve increased performance on multi-core and networked computers.

Flowers' research will use recent advances in thermochronological tools to investigate what is causing the uplift and erosion of the southern African Plateau, a large and elevated region of the continent's interior.

McLeod's research is focused on developing new fabrication techniques for next-generation electronic chips by breaking the existing limits on minimum feature size in optical lithography.

Sankaranarayanan is investigating automatic verification techniques for finding defects or bugs in embedded computer systems that monitor and control physical processes, such as are increasingly common in automobiles, avionics, medical devices and power-distribution systems.

Shang is investigating new communication technologies and system designs for emerging "many-core" computer systems, which have been the key performance bottleneck in massive-parallel computer systems.

Yin will use his award to advance the integrative chemical biology program at CU-Boulder by focusing on cutting-edge technologies to advance understanding of molecular recognition in cell membranes.