Schwartz, an assistant professor of biological sciences, is one of 58 young innovators this year to receive the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, or PECASE. Established by the White House in 1996, the PECASE program each year honors approximately 60 scientists and engineers who, early in their careers, have already blended excellence in pioneering research and service to their communities through scientific leadership and outreach activities.

The award recognizes Schwartz's work to improve computer models and simulation methods for biological self-assembly systems, which ultimately will accelerate research into the basic mechanisms of living cells and into applied problems such as drug discovery. The award also will honor Schwartz's teaching plans, which include introducing beginning biology students to computational resources and developing advanced curricula to prepare the next generation of computational biology experts for the new problems they will confront.

"We were very fortunate to recruit Russell Schwartz to our faculty," said Elizabeth Jones, head of Carnegie Mellon's Department of Biological Sciences at the Mellon College of Science (MCS). "He is a creative, highly productive scientist who brings computational biology to bear on interesting problems at scientific interfaces."

Schwartz is one of the 20 PECASE winners selected by the National Science Foundation (NSF) each year from among the most recent NSF Faculty Career Development (CAREER) Program awardees. About 40 awards in each PECASE conferral cycle are given by other government agencies.

The CAREER award, bestowed upon fewer than 400 scientists and engineers each year, is the NSF's most prestigiou
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Contact: Gretchen Underwood
gkgu@cmu.edu
412-268-4290
Carnegie Mellon University
13-Jun-2005