Two Cornell Assistant Professors Named Sloan Research Fellows

Two of Cornell’s researchers — Assistant Prof. Yimon Aye, chemistry and biochemistry, and Assistant Prof. David Mimno, information science — were recognized among today’s “most promising scientific researchers” when they were awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowships on Wednesday. In addition to acquiring prestige as members of “the next generation of scientific leaders” in the United States, the fellows will also receive $55,000 administered over two years to support their research, according to the Foundation. Aye’s multidisciplinary research focuses on the application of chemistry-driven technologies to biological cell signaling in order to better understand the timing and target specificity that underlie biological communications, she said. Her lab’s light-activatable on-demand redox-targeting synthetic molecule, named T-REX, is the first of its kind, and Aye attributes her innovative approach to her dual training. “It was quite a risky idea when we first started,” Aye admitted, but she said the award of the fellowship signaled to the team that they are headed in the right direction.