Roy and Lebeis Receive NSF CAREER Awards
The College of Arts and Sciences is excited to add Sharani Roy and Sarah Lebeis to a particularly exclusive group of honorees. They join the ranks of those having been selected to receive a coveted National Science Foundation CAREER award. This esteemed early-career honor is bestowed upon promising young faculty who show exceptional potential in their field and are devoted to higher education. This award also provides a 5 year grant to help fund their research. With the addition of Roy and Lebeis, the department will have accrued 11 of these high honors.
“NSF CAREER awards are designed to prepare tenure-track faculty for a lifetime of outstanding research and education service,” said Drew Haswell, research coordinator for the college.
Sharani Roy is an assistant professor of chemistry that specializes in surface chemistry. Her research attempts to develop newer, more accurate methods of studying surface chemistry that extend beyond previous concepts of molecular dynamics simulations. In addition to developing courses on computational chemistry, surface chemistry, and scientific computing, she has partnered with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to organize a symposium on surface chemistry.
Of the almost 800 applicants in her category, Roy was one of about 170 chosen for funding. In Lebeis’s category of approximately 400, fewer than 50 were selected.