Hellman Fellows: Early-Career Faculty Going Places

by Dave Jones
August 14, 2017

Alex Forrest and glider — Alexander Forrest has done research in Antarctica (he’s pictured here at Terra Nova Bay at the bottom of the Earth), and, for his Hellman fellowship, he’s doing research near the top of the world, in the Canadian Arctic. (Damien Guihen/University of Tasmania photo)

Academic Affairs Vice Provost Phil Kass announced the 2017 �ٺ��Ƶ Hellman Fellows: 15 assistant professors who have been awarded a total of $294,300 in research support.

“Altruistic vision inspired the Hellman family to start this program more than 20 years ago, and it has endured through the ,” Kass said, “enhancing the trajectories of our early-career faculty of whom we are so proud.”

The San Francisco family provided the first Hellman fellowships in 1994 at UC San Diego and UC Berkeley in support of early-career faculty research. The fellows program has expanded to all 10 UCs (it’s the only privately funded, systemwide program) and to four private institutions — supporting more than 100 junior faculty members annually.

HELLMAN FELLOW SPOTLIGHT

Read about Alexander Forrest’s research in this May 2017 article from �ٺ��Ƶ News and Media Relations.

Hellman fellowships are awarded through a competitive selection process on each campus. Preference is given to faculty members who exhibit the potential for great academic distinction, but who have garnered only modest support and have not received other young investigator awards.

�ٺ��Ƶ has distributed $2.75 million in funding over the last 10 years. “Not only do the Hellman funds help support the success of the fellows, but our graduate students — our future faculty — reap the rewards as well.”

In the 2017-18 funding cycle, the campus awarded fellowships of $5,000 to $43,000 to the following faculty members, in support of 14 projects (also listed). Links are provided to project descriptions, if available on the Hellman Fellows website.

Hellman Fellows, 6 mugshots — Hellman Fellows, from left: Top row — Cuellar, Dimofte, Donadio and Forrest. Bottom row — Hare and Hosek (joint project).

Marcela Cuellar, School of Education, “Examining the Baccalaureate Origins of Latina/o Doctorate Recipients and Their Pathway Into the Professoriate”
Tudor Dimofte, Department of Mathematics, “Vortices and Geometric Representation Theory”
Davide Donadio, Department of Chemistry,
Alexander LeBaron Forrest, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Christopher Hare and Adrienne Hosek (joint proposal), Department of Political Science,

Hellman Fellows, 9 mugshots — Hellman Fellows, from left: Top row — Jacob, Kahn, Lee, McCourt and Rubio. Bottom row — Rulli, Taha, Townsend and Zellou.

Adam Jacob, Department of Mathematics,
Jeffrey Kahn, Department of Anthropology, “Geographic Information Systems/Network Analysis Methods Training”
Yong Jae Lee, Department of Computer Science,
David McCourt, Department of Sociology,
Cindy Rubio Gonzalez, Department of Computer Science, “A Large-Scale Study of Bugs in Numerical Software”
Christina Rulli, Department of Philosophy,
Ameer Taha, Department of Food Science and Technology, “A New Lipid Signaling Pathway That Facilitates Brain Repair”
Jacinda Townsend, Department of English,
Georgia Zellou, Department of Linguistics,

Follow Dateline �ٺ��Ƶ on Twitter.

Primary Category

University

�ٺ���Ƶ