Four NYU faculty win Sloan Foundation research fellowships

(Press-News.org) Four New York University faculty have been awarded fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation: Danique Jeurissen, an assistant professor of neural science, and Marvin Parasram, an assistant professor of chemistry, as well as Florian Schäfer and Joseph Tassarotti, assistant professors in NYU’s Courant Institute School of Mathematics, Computing, and Data Science.

“The Sloan Research Fellows are among the most promising early-career researchers in the US and Canada, already driving meaningful progress in their respective disciplines,” says Stacie Bloom, president and chief executive officer of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “We look forward to seeing how these exceptional scholars continue to unlock new scientific advancements, redefine their fields, and foster the wellbeing and knowledge of all.”

Since the first Sloan Research Fellowships were awarded in 1955, 102 faculty from NYU have been selected as recipients. 

This year’s 126 Sloan Fellows, drawn from 44 institutions across the US and Canada, include the following NYU faculty:

Danique Jeurissen studies how the brain can recover from damage by measuring how information can be processed by alternative pathways after manipulation of neural activity. Her lab combines sophisticated behavioral tasks with causal manipulation techniques and electrophysiology to understand how neural activity across the brain changes in response to disruptions or damage to cortical areas. Eventually, Jeurissen hopes that her research will lead to a better understanding of the routing of information in the brain—a breakthrough that would enhance our understanding of how it responds after a stroke or traumatic brain injury and potentially leading to treatments that work in tandem with the brain’s natural compensatory processes. Marvin Parasram develops protocols for incorporating heteroatoms—atoms other than hydrogen or carbon—into organic systems, including medicinally important compounds. Heteroatoms are featured in many life-saving therapeutics, but current methods for bonding them can be costly and difficult. Parasram's lab uses light-activated 1,3-dipoles—compounds with a positive and negative charge spread over three atoms—to incorporate heteroatoms, with these reagents acting as both the hydrocarbon activator and the heteroatom source. The protocols developed in his lab provide a streamlined, sustainable framework for rapidly synthesizing next-generation medicines. Florian Schäfer’s work has centered on the interplay of numerical computation and statistical inference. Schäfer and his colleagues have developed algorithms, techniques, and methods that have the potential to improve computer graphics, materials, and aircraft designs. He is currently working on developing information geometric mechanics—an interdisciplinary field that revisits the statistical foundations of computational mechanics—which has the potential to improve the integration of physical simulation with statistical modeling and optimization. Joseph Tassarotti develops techniques to formally prove that software behaves correctly and is free from certain types of bugs. His research focuses on programs that are highly non-deterministic, or unpredictable, which can make bugs difficult to detect through conventional means. The sources of non-determinism considered in his work include randomness, which is used extensively for security and privacy applications, and distributed execution, where multiple computers in a system interact. His group develops tools called program logics, which make it easier to reason about these challenging types of programs. Fellows receive $75,000, over a two-year period, to further their research. To date, 59 Fellows have received a Nobel Prize, including John Clarke, last year’s Nobel laureate in physics. In addition, 72 Fellows have won the National Medal of Science, 17 have won the Fields Medal in mathematics, and 25 have won the John Bates Clark Medal in economics, including every winner since 2009. A database of all Sloan Research Fellows may be found on the foundation’s website.

EDITOR’S NOTE:

Founded in 1831, New York University is one of the world’s foremost research universities and is a member of the selective Association of American Universities. NYU has degree-granting university campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai and has 13 other global academic sites, including London, Paris, Florence, Tel Aviv, Buenos Aires, and Accra. Through its numerous schools and colleges, NYU is a leader in conducting research and providing education in the arts and sciences, law, medicine, business, dentistry, engineering, education, nursing, the cinematic and performing arts, music and studio arts, public administration, social work, public health, and professional studies, among other areas.  

In November 2025, NYU announced the establishment of the Courant Institute School of Mathematics, Computing, and Data Science. The newly established school recognizes the storied history of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences—and its strengths in both applied and pure mathematics—while encompassing NYU’s Center for Data Science and linking the computer science departments at Courant and the Tandon School of Engineering.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a not-for-profit, mission-driven grantmaking institution dedicated to improving the welfare of all through the advancement of scientific knowledge. Founded in 1934 by industrialist Alfred P. Sloan Jr., the Foundation disburses approximately $85 million in grants each year in four broad areas: direct support of research in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and economics; initiatives to increase access and opportunity in graduate science education; projects to develop or leverage technology to empower research; and efforts to enhance and deepen public engagement with science and scientists. For more, please visit its website.

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