Two Women Scholars in STEM Receive Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowships

Every year, the United States of Department Defense (DoD) selects a cohort of scientists and engineers for their Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship, the department’s flagship single-investigator award for basic research. The fellowship allows researchers the opportunity to collaborate with laboratories at the DoD, which will contribute roughly $33 million in research funding to this year’s fellowship cohort. The 2024 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship cohort consists of 11 scholars from across the country, two of whom are women.

Domitilla Del Vecchio from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will use her fellowship in support of her project, “Analog Epigenetic Cell Memory: Biology and Engineering.”

At MIT, Dr. Del Vecchio holds the title of Grover M. Hermann Professor in Health Sciences & Technology. She first joined the institution in 2010 as an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering. Earlier in her career, she served as a faculty member with the department of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan. Her current research focuses on model-based analysis, design, and control of biomolecular networks in living cells.

Dr. Del Vecchio completed her undergraduate education in electrical engineering at the University or Rome at Tor Vergata in Italy. She holds a Ph.D. in control and dynamical systems from the California Institute of Technology.

Emilia Morosan from Rice University in Houston, Texas will leverage her new fellowship to fund her “Correlated Topological Materials in a ‘New Light'” project.

For nearly two decades, Dr. Morosan has served as a professor in several departments at Rice University. Her primary appointment is in the department of physics and astronomy, and she holds affiliate appointments in the departments of chemistry, materials science and nanoengineering, and electrical and chemical engineering. She focuses her current research on the design and synthesis of quantum materials with emergent properties, aiming to discover new compounds with potential for various applications in physics.

Dr. Morosan received her bachelor’s degree in physics from Al. I. Cuza University in Iasi, Romania and her Ph.D. in physics and astronomy from Iowa State University.