Star-Friedman Challenge for Promising Scientific Research: Previous Award Recipients

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2023

A recording of the 10th Anniversary Star-Friedman Challenge Presentations is available for viewing.

2023 Star-Friedman Challenge Award Recipients
2023 Star-Friedman Challenge Award Recipients
  • Melani Cammett, Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs in the Department of Government and Director, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs: “Toleration: Living Together After Ethnic Conflict”
  • Frank Keutsch, Stonington Professor of Engineering and Atmospheric Science and Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology: “Identification and Initial Development of Technology for Quantifying Hydrogen Emissions”
  • Richard Liu, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Joonho Lee, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology: “Harnessing the Light-Matter Interaction for Controlling Chemical Reactivity”
  • Vinothan Manoharan, Wagner Family Professor of Chemical Engineering and Professor of Physics: “Imaging the products of viral lysis of cyanobacteria”
  • Matteo Mitrano, Assistant Professor of Physics: “An ultrafast magnetic switch for energy-efficient electronics”
  • Julia Mundy, Assistant Professor of Physics, and Jarad Mason, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology: “New methods to engineer metastable quantum materials”
  • Christina Warinner, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Sally Starling Seaver Associate Professor at the Radcliffe Institute: “A novel proteomics approach for tracing the prehistoric origins and spread of viral pathogens”

2022

A recording of the 2022 Star-Friedman Challenge event is available for viewing.

Star-Friedman Awardees
2022 Challenge winners with donors Jamie Star and Josh and Beth Friedman, and FAS Dean of Science Christopher Stubbs. Photographed by Jeannie Ingram.


Nadja Drabon, Assistant Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS, FAS)
“Searching for the oldest evidence of life”

Jarad Mason, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology (CCB, FAS)
Daniel Nocera, Patterson Rockwood Professor of Energy (CCB, FAS)
“Microporous Liquids: Next-Generation Electrolytes for Catalysis”

Noel Michele Holbrook, Charles Bullard Professor of Forestry, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (OEB, FAS)
Fulton E. Rockwell, Research Scientist (OEB, FAS)
“Physical controls on the exchange of carbon and water between plants and the atmosphere”

Stratos Idreos, Associate Professor of Computer Science (CS, SEAS)
“Reimagining how Computers See: Making AI Accessible and Accurate”

Kara McKinley, Assistant Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology (HSCRB, FAS & HMS)
“Movies of menstruation: visualizing regeneration in the uterus”

Maxim Prigozhin, Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and of Applied Physics (MCB, FAS; AP, SEAS)
“Spatiotemporal mapping of opioid signaling in neurons”

 

2021

A recording of the 2021 Star-Friedman Challenge event is available for viewing.

Jonathan Abraham, Assistant Professor of Microbiology
“Prospective profiling of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein evolutionary dynamics”

Andrew Davies, Assistant Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
“Anthropocene Savannas: The Future of Humans, Wildlife & Livestock”

Roger Fu, Assistant Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences
“Probing seismic hazards and earthquake physics using high-resolution magnetic imaging”

Sophie Helaine, Assistant Professor of Microbiology
“Exploiting prophages to tackle antibiotic persistence during infection”

Ya-Chieh Hsu, Alvin and Esta Star Associate Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology and Jason Buenrostro, Assistant Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology
“Can Mammals Regenerate? Lessons from the Skin”

Kaighin McColl, Assistant Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences and of Environmental Science and Engineering
“Dry lightning: pulling the trigger on wildfires in a warming world”

Julia Mundy, Assistant Professor of Physics
“An interfacial platform for faultless quantum computing”
 

2020

recording of the 2020 Star-Friedman Challenge event is available for viewing.

George Church, Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School
“Engineering in situ sensors as instantaneous COVID-19 diagnostics”

Francesca Dominici, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Biostatistics, Population and Data Science, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Rachel Nethery, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Danielle Braun, Research Scientist, Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Antonella Zanobetti, Principal Research Scientist, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Natesh Pillai, Professor of Statistics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
“Air pollution, race, and health outcomes for COVID-19 in the United States: data access, methods, and dissemination”

Jerry X. Mitrovica, Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
“A new method for detecting polar ice sheet instability in a warming world”

Benton Taylor, Assistant Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
“Volcanic COvents: windows into the future of tropical forests”

David Williams, Florence Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professor of Public Health, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences Chair, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Michelle Holmes, Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Todd G. Reid, Research Associate in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Research Scientist, MIT Media Lab; Nicholas Carson, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
“Despair of a pandemic: using big data to understand the effects of COVID-19 on adolescents and their community”

Suyang Xu, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
“Electron super-highways for information processing”

Xiaowei Zhuang, David B. Arnold, Jr. Professor of Science, Faculty of Arts and Sciences; William Allen, Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows
“Imaging the cellular and molecular basis of brain aging”
 

2019

2019 Awardees
Winners of the 2019 Star-Friedman Challenge for Promising Scientific Research. Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer


Benjamin de Bivort, Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology; Noel Michele Holbrook, Charles Bullard Professor of Forestry and Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology; Samuel Myers, Principal Research Scientist, Planetary Health, Exposure, Epidemiology, and Risk Program, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, & Director, Planetary Health Alliance; James D. Crall, Rockefeller Foundation Planetary Health Alliance Postdoctoral Fellow in the de Bivort Lab
"Impacts of Elevated CO2 on Bees and Pollination Services via Alterations in Pollen Nutrition"


Jennifer Hoffman, Professor of Physics; Boris Kozinsky, Associate Professor of Computational Materials Science
"Search for Superconductivity in Hundreds of Atom"

David Keith, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics; Joost Vlassak, Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Materials Engineering
"Building the World’s Smallest Flying Machines"


Ann Pearson, Murray and Martha Ross Professor of Environmental Sciences & Harvard College Professor
"Testing a New Proxy for Past Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Levels"

 

2018

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Faculty members stand with Randy Buckner, chairman of the faculty review committee that selects the projects. Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer


Cora Dvorkin, Assistant Professor of Physics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
“Foreground Separation in the Search of Primordial Gravitational Waves”

 

Karine Gibbs, Associate Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences; and Colleen Cavanaugh, Edward C. Jeffrey Professor of Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
“You can’t just go with your gut: Determining the switch to virulence in endogenous members of the gut microbiome”

 

Peter Girguis, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences; and Aspen Reese, Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
“Collecting and Protecting Microbiomes: Leveraging Natural History Collections to Study Microbial Communities”

 

Stein Jacobsen, Professor of Geochemistry, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
“Towards Solving the Younger Dryas Mystery”

 

Matthew Nock, Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Samuel Gershman, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences; and Jukka-Pekka Onnela, Associate Professor of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
“Using Mobile Passive Monitoring, Real-time Assessment and Dynamic Computational Phenotypes to Understand, Predict and Prevent Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors”


2017

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Challenge winners Amy Wagers, Robin Wordsworth, Jesse Snedeker, Elsie Sunderland, and Caroline Buckee. Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer


Jesse Snedeker, Professor of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
“Language creation: Modeling the rapid emergence of a new language in Nicaragua”

Elsie Sunderland, Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering, John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering in the Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health; and Caroline Buckee, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
“Epidemics in the wind: Can airborne bacteria cause meningitis outbreaks?”


Amy Wagers, Forst Family Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
“Why we age: a potentially common driver of age-related dysfunction across organ systems”

Robin Wordsworth, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering, John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
“Resolving the status of oxygen as a biosignature to allow a search for life on exoplanets”


2016

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Doug Melton presented the awards to Edo Berger, Katia Bertoldi, Talia Konkle, Bence Ölveczky, and Edward Glaeser. Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer


Edo Berger, Professor of Astronomy, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
“A New Era of General Relativity: Joint Studies of Astrophysical Gravitational Wave Sources and their Electromagnetic Radiation”

Katia Bertoldi, William and Ami Kuan Danoff Professor of Applied Mechanics, John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
“Topologically protected excitations in mechanical meta-materials”

Edward Glaeser, Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
“Computer Vision-Automated Surveys for Urban Science and Economic Development”

Talia Konkle, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
“Shape, curvature, and the neural representation of objects”

Bence Ölveczky, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
“Continuous long-term tracking of brain dynamics and behavior”


2015

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Douglas Melton presented awards to five Harvard faculty: Joshua Greene, Paola Arlotta, Federico Capasso, David Keith, and accepting for Daniel Schrag was research assistant Lauren Benson Kuntz. Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer


Paola Arlotta, Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
“Cognition in the dish: creation of next-generation models of neurodevelopment disease using human brain organoids”

Federico Capasso, Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
“Emissive Energy Harvesting”

Joshua D. Greene, Professor of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
“The Nuts and Bolts of Complex Thought: Neural Mechanisms of Truth: Functional Operation”

David Keith, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; and Frank Keutsch, Stonington Professor of Engineering and Atmospheric Science, Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
“Designing advanced particles to limit the risk of solar geoengineering”

Daniel P. Schrag, Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology and Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering, Director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Area Dean for Environmental Science and Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
“Towards a Mechanistic Theory for the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and an Explanation for the Hiatus in Global Warming”


2014


Richard T. Lee, Professor of Stem Cell & Regenerative Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
"Intrinsic chronometers of nuclear DNA: Searching for a DNA Hourglass”


Bernardo Lemos, Associate Professor of Environmental Epigenetics, Harvard School of Public Health
"Uncovering epigenetic adaptations to extraordinarily extreme cellular stresses”

 

Charles Lieber, Joshua and Beth Friedman University Professor, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
"Syringe Injectable Electronics for Brain Activity Mapping”

Conor Walsh, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
“Can soft wearable robots assist patients with limited mobility”