Two Assistant Professors Win CAREER Awards from National Science Foundation

March 5, 2015 • by Steven E. Franklin

The CAREER awards are intended to recognize promising young faculty and support their research with five years of funding.


Two assistant professors in the College of Natural Sciences have received Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) awards from the National Science Foundation totaling more than half a million dollars.

The CAREER awards are intended to recognize promising young faculty and support their research with five years of funding.

Işil Dillig

Işil Dillig, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science, will use her $227,705 award to study better ways to verify that computer software is free from defects, using abductive reasoning to automate the process as much as possible while allowing verification of many types of software. One of the project’s goals is the ability to find software bugs that are so subtle or hidden that they cannot be identified by current testing technology.

Ilya Finkelstein

Ilya Finkelstein, an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences, will use his $327,057 to study at a molecular level how conflicts between DNA replication and translation occur and how they are resolved by using high-throughput single-molecule fluorescence imaging. This project will also use the concept of “molecular machines” to teach and inspire undergraduate students in the Freshman Research Initiative.

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