NSF CAREER Awards received by WMU faculty

Contact: Diana Hearit
May 31, 2017

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—Dr. Fahad Saeed, Dr. Wendy Scott Beane, and Dr. Elena Litvinova have all been been given the highly prestigious CAREER award from the National Science Foundation—NSF CAREER awards are the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards for junior faculty and these highly selective grants are given to faculty researchers who are likely to become academic leaders of the future. Awardees have the flexibility to explore unexpected new terrain uncovered through the course of their research. 

Dr. Fahad Saeed is a Western Michigan University assistant professor in the Departments of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering. He will use the 5-year grant of $500,000 to lay a foundation for fast algorithmic and high performance computing solutions suitable for analyzing big proteogenomics data sets. He plans to involve both undergraduate and graduate students in the research, as well as develop an outreach program for K-12 students to be involved in hands-on research. For more information, see http://www.wmich.edu/engineer/fahad-saeed.

The $160,000 for the fiscal year totaling $800,000 over the lifetime of the grant, went to Dr. Wendy Scott Beane, assistant professor of biological sciences, to investigate the mechanisms by which neural regeneration is regulated in planarians. 

Dr. Elena Litvinova, assistant professor of physics, will be awarded $474,998 for her project entitled "CAREER: From Fundamental Interactions to Emergent Phenomena: Geometrical Aspects of Nuclear Dynamics”. The project will address important issues of the nuclear structure theory and include innovative outreach activities at the interface of science and visual arts.  

Read more about these awardees in the WMU magazine.