University physicist and assistant professor Kristjan Haule won the competitive Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship, which awards and enhances the careers of early-career scientists and scholars from the United States and Canada, for his work in material physics.
"It's a unique award because it's not based solely on previous work, but on the promise of future achievements and on creativity," said Gabi Kotliar, a physics professor and colleague of Haule.
Since the $50,000 fellowship is almost completely unrestricted, Haule said he plans to use the money to continue his research and to use the prestige of the award to secure funding from other sources.
"You get the feeling that you're doing something right and that you're on the right track," Haule said. "In science, it's hard to keep working unless you get recognition from among your colleagues and community. So it's very important."
Haule's work involves understanding how materials behave and predicting their behavior in computer stimulations in order to find useful applications of various materials or to optimize their properties, Kotliar said.
Haule combined the two fields of many body physics and dense functional theory, and applied it to more complicated materials using his code, said Ji Hoon Shim, a postdoctoral associate who has conducted research with Haule.
"His method involves very difficult physics and will be applied to more and more important materials," Shim said.
The algorithms Haule invented have the potential to be used in numerous ways, including using sunlight to produce electricity or as high temperature superconductors, Kotliar said.
"Society is facing a very serious problem in terms of energy," Kotliar said. "Everything around us is made of materials and the economy is dependent on development of new materials."
Eventually, scientists and engineers can use such findings for affordable, socially important purposes, Kotliar said.
Kotliar knew of Haule years before he came to the University while he was working on his Ph.D. in Slovenia.
"I had heard of this really smart kid in Slovenia doing his Ph.D. with exceptional activities, and I was following his career for many years," Kotliar said.
Kotliar said the Sloan fellowship is important to encourage the most promising individuals in a field so that they could generate new research.
"I'm very happy for him," Kotliar said. "I could not think of a more deserving candidate."
Haule has written about his work in two prestigious international science journals, "Nature" and "Science," during his three years at the University.
He said his interests fit perfectly with the Rutgers' Physics Department, which is highly regarded worldwide.
