Irinel Chiorescu, an assistant professor of physics at Florida State University and a researcher at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, has been awarded a prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
The fellowship is designed to identify and reward young scientists who show the greatest promise for making outstanding contributions to new knowledge in basic science. As such, it includes a two-year, $45,000 research-support grant. Chiorescu is one of only 116 researchers in North America to receive such an award, and the only faculty member from Florida.
"The Sloan fellowship distinguishes Irinel as one of the very best young faculty members in the country," said Gregory S. Boebinger, director of the magnet lab. "It also shows the level of respect for the faculty and research staff at the FSU physics department and the magnet lab."
Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded annually in seven fields: chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience and physics. Since the fellowship program was created 51 years ago, 32 Sloan Fellows have won Nobel Prizes later in their careers, and hundreds have received other honors.
Chiorescu earned his Ph.D. from Université Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, France, and is a condensed-matter physics experimentalist whose research focuses on quantum spin dynamics and nanotechnologies. The Sloan award will make it possible for him to generate an assistantship for a graduate student.
"I am truly honored to receive the Sloan award, which strengthens my commitment to succeed in the future," Chiorescu said. "The growing and diverse scientific environment at FSU and the magnet lab puts the research goals of my lab within reach."
In recent years, five FSU physics-department faculty members have been named Sloan Fellows; four of them also are affiliated with the magnet lab. Besides Chiorescu, recent past winners from FSU are Kun Yang (1999), Peng Xiong (1998), Vlad Dobrosavljevic (1997) and Nicholas Bonesteel (1996).
For more information about Chiorescu’s research, please visit http://qsd.magnet.fsu.edu/.