Susan Fullerton. IMAGE: PROVIDED BY UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
Engineering alumna named an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow
5/26/2020
By Jamie Oberdick
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State alumna Susan Fullerton, Bicentennial Board of Visitors Faculty Fellow, vice chair for graduate education, and assistant professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, has been selected as a 2020 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in Chemistry. The highly competitive award is given to outstanding early-career scientists from the U.S. and Canada.
Fullerton earned her bachelor of science and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering at Penn State in 2002 and 2009, respectively.
The two-year, $75,000 fellowship recognizes researchers’ unique potential to make substantial contributions to their field. Fullerton’s fellowship will further her research on two-dimensional materials for next-generation electronics. These two-dimensional materials can be thought of as a piece of paper — if the paper were only a single molecule thick. Fullerton’s group uses ions to control charge in these molecularly thin sheets for application in memory and logic.
“We are delighted to see Susan recognized with this Sloan Foundation award for her work on 2D materials,” said Phillip Savage, head of the Penn State Department of Chemical Engineering and Walter L. Robb Family Chair. “In addition to doing great work in the lab, Susan is also a great supporter of her alma mater, most recently giving a very well-received keynote address at our annual chemical engineering graduate research symposium.”
The Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded annually to 126 researchers in the areas of chemistry, computation and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience, ocean sciences and physics. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, founded in 1934 and named for the former president and CEO of the General Motors Corporation, makes grants to support research and education in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and economics.
Penn State partners with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation through the University Center of Exemplary Mentoring (UCEM). The UCEM is designed to support doctoral students from under-represented groups studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.
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