Watch Discovery Prize Finalists Describe Their Research
The $200,000 Stony Brook Foundation Discovery Prize will be awarded on Wednesday, April 28, at the end of a virtual event where four outstanding early-career faculty finalists will present their research.
The event will take place from 1-2:30 pm, and the winner will be announced after the presentations have been made.
The Discovery Prize was established in 2013 with a generous donation from the Stony Brook Foundation’s Board of Trustees as a way to advance pioneering scientific breakthroughs at a time when the primary source of support for basic research (i.e., the federal government) is dwindling.
It is a pathway to capitalize on new technologies, new innovations, new ideas and the urgency to move discovery-driven knowledge forward by investing private dollars in basic research that is free of commercial or political pressures. The Discovery Prize is also a means to advance the career of a rising star on the Stony Brook faculty whose ideas may be so revolutionary and so contrary to convention that funding agencies would be unlikely to provide support.
This year’s finalists are:
Assistant Professor Eszter Boros, Department of Chemistry, “Activation of Anticancer Drug Molecules With a Radioactive Light Switch”
Associate Professor Eric Brouzes, Department of Biomedical Engineering, “Enabling Platform for High-Resolution Spatial-omics to Reveal Cell-Cell Interactions Within Tissue by Sequencing”
Assistant Professor Gregory Henkes, Department of Geosciences, “A Rare Oxygen Isotope Recorder of Continental Aridity”
Associate Professor Kevin Reed, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, “Attribution of the Human Influence on the 2020 and 2021 Hurricane Seasons”
The 2021 Discovery Prize panel of distinguished judges includes Bruce Buetler, MD, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2011; Susan Brantley, PhD, National Academy of Sciences, 2012; Sharon Hammes-Schiffer, PhD, National Academy of Sciences, 2013; and James H. Simons, PhD, National Academy of Sciences, 2014.
Past winners are Il Memming Park (2019), Thomas Allison (2017) and Laurie Krug (2014).
For information and to register for the live webcast, visit stonybrook.edu/discoveryprize.