U-M mathematician awarded Sloan Fellowship

As part of Google's growing efforts to support excellent research in academia, we are pleased, effective January 22, 2026, to award The Regents of the University of Michigan an unrestricted gift of $527,227. We understand The Regents of the University of Michigan intends to use this gift to support the "SEISMIC 2.0 Assessment Initiative" currently led by Tim McKay. The overall goal of SEISMIC Phase Two is to promote greater adoption of assessment practices in large introductory STEM courses across a range of institutions and departments. To achieve this goal, Seismic will support STEM disciplinary teams in piloting revised assessments in STEM courses across the collaboration and evaluating their efficacy.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has awarded Sloan Research Fellowships to two computer engineers from the College of Engineering: Thatchaphol Saranurak and Andrew Owens. They are among 126 early-career researchers selected from institutions in the United States and Canada because their creativity, innovation and research accomplishments distinguish them as the next generation of leaders. A headshot of Andrew Owens Andrew Owens A headshot of Thatchaphol Saranurak Thatchaphol Saranurak Sloan Research Fellowships are one of the most competitive and prestigious awards available to early-career scholars, and they are seen as evidence of an institution’s success in attracting the most promising early-career researchers to its ranks.

A grant was made to to the University of Michigan’s Water Center for $532,000 and will use to update data and improve models to inform improvements for the health and water quality of Lake Erie.