2021 Discovery Prize
April 19, 2021
To all faculty, students, and staff,
Please join me on Wednesday, April 28, from 1 pm to 2:30 pm, for a special virtual
event: Four outstanding early-career faculty finalists will present their research
and compete for the $200,000 Stony Brook Foundation Discovery Prize.
At the conclusion of the presentations, we will announce our 2021 winner.
At Stony Brook, we understand the importance of fundamental, curiosity-driven research and seek to support our ambitious early-career faculty as they pursue bold ideas, ask new questions, and keep our university on the cutting edge of science and discovery. It is through innovative thinking like theirs that Stony Brook has come as far as it has today. It is also through new knowledge and discovery that Stony Brook will continue to enhance its reputation, advance interdisciplinary thought, and forge its groundbreaking research path. The basic research being done at institutions like ours has the power to transform the world as we know it — and the Discovery Prize is a truly transformational gesture of support for our pioneering researchers.
This year’s finalists and their presentations:
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.
For information and to register, visit stonybrook.edu/discoveryprize.
We hope you will join us for this truly momentous occasion and help celebrate the
exciting and thought-provoking research being done at Stony Brook.
Sincerely,
Maurie McInnis
President