By Joel Blumenthal
Biochemist Caro-Beth (Beth) Stewart says her $524,000 Presidential Faculty Fellow award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1994 helped put her on the map in the field of molecular evolution.
The grant, to study the molecular basis for adaptive evolution of higher organisms such as the primates, �catapulted me to a place where people saw me as a leader in the field, and it helped me get my next grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH),� says Stewart. �It literally kept my research program alive, and gave me an intellectual freedom that goes beyond what you normally can get from NIH grants.�
Stewart, an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, is one of three Albany faculty members to have won the NSF Presidential Faculty Fellow (PFF) award or its predecessor, the Presidential Young Investigator (PYI) award.
Lenore Mullin of the Department of Computer Science brought her $312,000 PFF to study �Intermediate Languages for Enhanced Parallel Performance� with her from the University of Missouri-Rolla when she joined the Albany faculty in 1995.
And physicist Alain Kaloyeros used his 1991 $312,000 PYI award to establish one of the most successful partnerships of government, industry and academe in New York, the Center for Advanced Thin Film Technology and the National Semiconductor Association Focus Center-New York at the Center for Environmental Sciences and Technology Management (CESTM).
Stewart — whose original research program focused on adaptive evolution of digestive enzymes in foregut-fermenting mammals — has expanded and changed research focus to study the evolutionary history and adaptation of AIDS-related proteins in the Old World monkeys. Her lab also has started research on adaptive evolution of certain genes that are expressed only in sperm cells.
�The research we are doing now wouldn�t have been possible without the NSF award. The NSF is one of the few places that only want scientists to be scientists,� Stewart says.
Robert Crangle, a Kansas-based consultant, is an expert on the NSF and has conducted in-service training for new NSF employees for many years. He notes that the NSF — an independent federal agency — has been able to grow and prosper for 50 years without becoming a �political football� because of its reputation for funding good science for science�s sake.
�Congress has a high degree of trust in NSF programs,� Crangle says. �Everyone tries to protect its role in funding needed research, and the current director (Rita Colwell) is able to continue the well-established bipartisan push for more resources by clarifying the agency mission into furnishing the �people, ideas and tools� needed to advance the nation�s scientific enterprise.�
Serving on NSF peer review panels also has enabled Stewart to experience the excitement of seeing what cutting-edge research other scientists in her field are conducting. She strongly urges more faculty colleagues to submit proposals to the NSF, primarily because, �Most people who are active researchers in the biological sciences are funded either by the NSF or NIH. And the students are bound to benefit from being able to participate in research that has been nationally recognized and funded.�
Stewart says her undergraduate students sometimes �are surprised to find out how much outstanding research is being conducted on this campus.� Getting involved in NSF- and/or NIH-funded research �helps them learn that science is a process,� she says.
Crangle notes that just as it is too early to see how the NSF funding a high school science research curriculum will benefit society at large, it will be decades before we can assess the success of NSF programs like PFF, PYI and their current incarnation, the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).
However, he adds, �I have yet to hear any story about an awardee whose career was not enhanced immediately. A career boost in a crowded field should give a person a lifetime edge.�
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