April 29, 2004

Faculty honors

Roman Bezrukavnikov, assistant professor of mathematics, has received a research fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

The Sloan Fellows are scientists in the early stages of their careers chosen on the basis of exceptional promise to contribute to the advancement of knowledge. They receive grants of $40,000 for a two-year period to pursue whatever lines of inquiry are of most interest to them.

Bezrukavnikov earned a doctoral degree in mathematics from the University of Tel-Aviv in 1999. From 1996-98 he served as a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, participating in special programs on quantum field theory and geometric methods in representation theory. He also received a Clay Mathematical Institute Fellowship and a National Science Foundation research grant.

He has published more than 20 papers in representation theory and algebraic geometry, his area of research.

Carole LaBonne, assistant professor of biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology, has received the 2004 General Motors Cancer Research Scholar Award. The GM program presents the $200,000 award annually to five promising young researchers committed to a career in cancer research.

LaBonne studies the cellular and molecular events underlying the formation, behavior and differentiation of neural crest cells, stem-cell-like precursor cells that play a central role in establishing the vertebrate body plan. Defects in neural crest development underlie a wide variety of birth defects and cancers.

LaBonne is decoding the mechanisms by which snail and myc family transcription factors regulate the normal and abnormal development of the neural crest. These investigations may unravel the mechanisms by which snail and c-myc regulate both neural crest development and tumor progression, and may lead to the design of novel therapeutic agents.

In 2002 LaBonne received a Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award from the March of Dimes Foundation for her work on neural crest-linked birth defects.

Ed Paschke, John Evans Professor of Art, has been named the first Mary Jane Crowe Professor in Art and Art History.

When Paschke joined Northwestern in 1977 he already had established an international reputation for his distinctive paintings and prints, and he is now recognized as one of his generation’s outstanding artists. His reputation rests on his startling use of color and image, his reference to popular cultural icons, and his striking psychological and introspective forms.

Paschke has exhibited his work widely in the United States and abroad. His paintings are held in permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Musee Pompidou, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of Modern Art and the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian, among others.

An eloquent advocate of the arts, Paschke has won a number of awards, including the Performing Arts Chicago Impact Award in 2002.