Media Contacts:
Dr. Jason Haugh, 919/513-3851
Mick Kulikowski, News Services, 919/515-3470

May 4, 2004

Engineering Professor Haugh Honored with NSF Presidential Award

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Dr. Jason Haugh, assistant professor of chemical engineering at North Carolina State University, is the recipient of a 2002 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Dr. Jason Haugh

The award is the highest given by the federal government to young scientists and engineers at the beginning of their careers. Haugh received his award alongside 56 others today in a special White House ceremony.

NSF’s nominees for these presidential awards are drawn from junior faculty members who have received grants from NSF’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program, considered the agency’s most important and prestigious awards for new faculty members who show promise as leaders in science and engineering.

In 2002, Haugh was named a recipient of an NSF CAREER award, worth $375,000 in funding over five years, to support his research project entitled “Intracellular Signaling Networks in the Immune Response.”

Haugh is researching the molecular processes in living cells that control cell function, through a combination of experimental and theoretical approaches. Potential implications of the research are envisioned for medicine and biotechnology in the creation of new therapeutic strategies. Haugh’s education program includes the integration of these principles in his graduate course, Molecular Cell Engineering, and the development of hands-on experiments for students at the undergraduate and pre-college levels.

The NSF-supported PECASE recipients represent a little more than 5 percent of all CAREER awards made in 2002. Of the 2,900 CAREER awards made since the program began in 1996, only 140 have received presidential recognition.

Haugh received his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from NC State in 1994, and his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1999. He joined the NC State faculty in May 2000.

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Note to editors: The award year listed (2002) is not a typographical error. The 2002 PECASE recipients are being honored today.