Here's to a small victory in science education! Every year, the MacArthur Foundation makes a $500,000 investment in the future by handing out money to people whose work shows promise. The 2012 fellows were just announced and on this year's roster are a plethora of STEM representatives including a mathematician, a geriatrician, an optical physicist and astronomer, a neurobiologist, a medical microbiologist, a geochemist, a marine ecologist, a computer scientist and a bioengineer. Two of the winners were also named one of PopSci's Brilliant 10: Maria Chudnovsky and Melody Swartz.
Matematician Maria ChudnovskyMaria Chudnovsky investigates the fundamental principles of graph theory. Although her research is highly abstract, Chudnovsky is laying the conceptual foundation s for deepening connections between graph theory and its relationship to other branches of mathematics, such as linear programming and geometry. Chudnovsky is an associate professor for the department of industrial engineering and operations research at Columbia University.
Bioengineer Melody Swartz
Melody Swartz applies principles and methods from engineering and physiology to discover the mechanisms controlling the movement of biological fluids through tissue and the implications for health. She uses a large toolbox of concepts and methods from biophysics, cell culture, molecular genetics, engineering and immunology Swartz is a professor at the Institute of Bioengineering in Lausanne, Switzerland.
