Press Release - President Obama Honors Federally-Funded Early-Career Scientists

Today, President Obama named 102 scientists and researchers as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

"I congratulate these outstanding scientists and engineers on their impactful work," President Obama said. "These innovators are working to help keep the United States on the cutting edge, showing that Federal investments in science lead to advancements that expand our knowledge of the world around us and contribute to our economy."

The Presidential Early Career Awards highlight the key role that the Administration places in encouraging and accelerating American innovation to grow our economy and tackle our greatest challenges. This year's recipients are employed or funded by the following departments and agencies: Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of the Interior, Department of Veterans Affairs, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Science Foundation, Smithsonian Institution, and the Intelligence Community. These departments and agencies join together annually to nominate the most meritorious scientists and engineers whose early accomplishments show the greatest promise for assuring America's preeminence in science and engineering and contributing to the awarding agencies' missions.

The awards, established by President Clinton in 1996, are coordinated by the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President. Awardees are selected for their pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and their commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education, or community outreach.

The newest recipients are:

Department of Agriculture
Michelle Cilia, USDA Agricultural Research Service
Pankaj Lal, Montclair State University
Michael Ulyshen, USDA Forest Service

Department of Commerce
Nicholas Butch, NIST Center for Neutron Research
Mandy Karnauskas, NOAA Fisheries
Anne Perring, University of Colorado, Boulder
Corey Potvin, University of Oklahoma
John Teufel, NIST Physical Measurement Laboratory
Justin Zook, NIST Material Measurement Laboratory

Department of Defense
Michael Bell, Colorado State University
Nurcin Celik, University of Miami
Kaushik Chowdhury, Northeastern University
Shawn Douglas, University of California, San Francisco
Christopher Dyer, DeepMind and Carnegie Mellon University
Aaron Esser-Kahn, University of California, Irvine
Sinan Keten, Northwestern University
Jonathan Fan, Stanford University
Danna Freedman, Northwestern University
Thomas Harris, Northwestern University
David Hsieh, California Institute of Technology
Osama Nayfeh, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center-Pacific
Olukayode Okusaga, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
Joseph Parker, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
Adam Pilchak, Air Force Research Laboratory
Harris Wang, Columbia University

Department of Education
Daphna Bassok, University of Virginia
Shayne Piasta, The Ohio State University

Department of Energy
Jonathan Belof, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Carl Dahl, Northwestern University
Eric Duoss, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Anna Grassellino, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Jacqueline Hakala, National Energy Technology Laboratory
Stephanie Hansen, Sandia National Laboratories
Kory Hedman, Arizona State University
Alan Kruizenga, Sandia National Laboratories
Wei Li, Rice University
Guglielmo Scovazzi, Duke University
Michael Tonks, Penn State University
Jenny Yang, University of California, Irvine
John Yeager, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Department of Health and Human Services
Gregory Alushin, Rockefeller University
Manish Arora, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Dawn Cornelison, University of Missouri
Kashmira Date, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Craig Duvall, Vanderbilt University
Nicholas Gilpin, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center
Anna Greka, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Pamela Guerrerio, National Institutes of Health
Gery Guy, Jr., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Christine Hendon, Columbia University
Catherine Karr, University of Washington
Maria Lehtinen, Boston Children's Hospital
Adriana Lleras-Muney, University of California, Los Angeles
Mary Kay Lobo, University of Maryland School of Medicine
Michael McAlpine, University of Minnesota
Eric Morrow, Brown University
Daniel O'Connor, Johns Hopkins University
Aimee Shen, Tufts University
Cui Tao, University of Texas
Jacquelyn Taylor, Yale School of Nursing
Benjamin Voight, University of Pennsylvania
Matthew Wheeler, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Blake Wiedenheft, Montana State University

Department of Interior
Nathaniel Hitt, U.S. Geological Survey
Sarah Minson, U.S. Geological Survey
Diann Prosser, U.S. Geological Survey

Department of Veterans Affairs
Adam Rose, RAND Corporation and Boston Medical Center
Nasia Safdar, Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital
Joshua Yarrow, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Environmental Protection Agency
Havala Pye, Environmental Protection Agency
Sala Senkayi, Environmental Protection Agency

Intelligence Community
Matthew Dicken, U.S. Army
Josiah Dykstra, National Security Agency
James Kang, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Jason Matheny, Office of the Director of National Intelligence
David Moehring, IonQ, Inc.
R. Jacob Vogelstein, Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity

National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Jeremy Bassis, University of Michigan
Othmane Benafan, NASA Glenn Research Center
Dalia Kirschbaum, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Marco Pavone, Stanford University
Miguel Roman, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

National Science Foundation
Alicia Alonzo, Michigan State University
Randy Ewoldt, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Emily Fox, University of Washington
Jacob Fox, Stanford University
Eric Hudson, University of California, Los Angeles
Shawn Jordan, Arizona State University
Ahmed Khalil, Boston University
Oleg Komogortsev, Texas State University, San Marcos
John Kovac, Harvard University
Bérénice Mettler, University of Minnesota and icuemotion, LLC
Jelani Nelson, Harvard University
Elizabeth Nolan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Michael Rotkowitz, University of Maryland, College Park
Andrea Sweigart, University of Georgia
Chuanbing Tang, University of South Carolina
Aradhna Tripati, University of California, Los Angeles
Franck Vernerey, University of Colorado, Boulder
Juan Pablo Vielma Centeno, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Makeba Wilbourn, Duke University

Smithsonian Institution
Nicholas Pyenson, Smithsonian Institution