News Release

Three NYU faculty win Sloan Foundation research fellowships

Grant and Award Announcement

New York University

Three New York University faculty have been awarded fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation: Anna Choromanska, an assistant professor at the Tandon School of Engineering; Christine Constantinople, an assistant professor in the Center for Neural Science; and Daniele Panozzo, an assistant professor in the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.

The fellowships are given to early-career scientists and scholars "whose creativity, leadership, and independent research achievements make them some of the most promising researchers working today," the Sloan Foundation said in announcing this year's 126 fellows.

A full list of the 2020 Fellows is available at the Sloan Foundation website.

"To receive a Sloan Research Fellowship is to be told by your fellow scientists that you stand out among your peers," says Adam F. Falk, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. "A Sloan Research Fellow is someone whose drive, creativity, and insight makes them a researcher to watch."

Choromanska, who did postdoctoral research at NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and who holds an appointment at NYU's Center for Data Science and NYU's Center for Urban Science and Progress, focuses on machine learning. Her primary research projects center on optimization (deep learning landscape, deep learning optimization, and general machine learning optimization), large data analysis, and machine learning for robotics and autonomy, such as autonomous driving systems, self-driving cars, and AI-based robotics.

Constantinople, an alumna of NYU's College of Arts and Science, is interested in understanding how the brain assigns value to outcomes and uses those value estimates to make decisions. Her work draws inspiration from the field of behavioral economics, which describes highly reproducible and interesting aspects of choice behavior, many of which are observable in rats. She uses high-throughput behavioral training of rats, computational modeling, and the powerful experimental toolkit available in rodents for studying neural circuits, to understand the neural circuit basis of cognitive computations guiding value-based choices.

Panozzo develops algorithmic and mathematical tools to enable automatic, reliable, and accurate solutions of partial differential equations on complex geometrical domains without requiring user interaction. His work facilitates ?nite element analysis, allowing direct simulation of physical phenomena on three-dimensional geometries acquired from the real world (via 3D scanning, medical imaging, or microscopy) or designed using computer-aided design software. Panozzo's contributions are supporting research in biology, mechanical engineering, computer graphics, architecture, and machine learning.

Since the beginning of the program in 1955, 50 Sloan fellows have received a Nobel Prize in their respective fields, 17 have won the Fields Medal in mathematics, 69 have received the National Medal of Science, and 19 have won the John Bates Clark Medal in economics, including every winner since 2007.

Fellows receive $75,000, over a two-year period, to further their research.

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EDITOR'S NOTE:

Founded in 1831, NYU is one of the world's foremost research universities and is a member of the selective Association of American Universities. NYU has degree-granting university campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai and has 11 other global academic sites, including London, Paris, Florence, Tel Aviv, Buenos Aires, and Accra. Through its numerous schools and colleges, NYU is a leader in conducting research and providing education in the arts and sciences, engineering, law, medicine, business, dentistry, education, nursing, the cinematic and performing arts, music and studio arts, public administration, social work, and professional studies, among other areas. For more, please visit http://www.nyu.edu.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a philanthropic, not-for-profit grant making institution based in New York City. Established in 1934 by Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr., then-President and Chief Executive Officer of the General Motors Corporation, the Foundation makes grants in support of original research and education in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and economics. For more, please visit https://sloan.org


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