PHILADELPHIA -- Five young scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have been named Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellows for 2010.

• Iwan Barankay, an associate professor of management at Penn’s Wharton School, studies personnel economics and political economy.
• Justin Khoury, an assistant professor of physics in the School of Arts and Sciences, researches theoretical particle cosmology.
• Elliot Lipeles, also an assistant professor of physics in SAS, researches experimental particle physics.
• Nicole Rust, an assistant professor in psychology in SAS, researches behavioral neuroscience.
• Ben Taskar, an assistant professor in computer and information science in Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science, researches machine learning and applications to computational linguistics and computer vision.

“These awards are a great recognition of the range and vitality of our faculty’s research, “Penn Provost Vincent Price said. “They are also a strong affirmation of Penn’s junior faculty, who are our next generation of intellectual and research leaders.”

The awards support research in physics, chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics and neuroscience. Each year 118 fellows are selected from across the nation.

The Sloan Research Fellowships’ $50,000 grants will allow the recipients to continue their research for the next two years.

Additional information about the Sloan Fellowships is available at http://www.sloan.org.