Novik Wins Sloan Fellowship

Isabella Novik has been awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship for 2006-2008. Currently an Assistant Professor, Novik has been with the Department since 2001, having previously served as a Morrey Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley. She received her award-winning Ph.D. in 1999 from Hebrew University in Israel under the supervision of Gil Kalai.

Novik does research in combinatorics, and is one of the editors-in-chief of the Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics. The field of combinatorics has been a strength of the UW Mathematics Department for years, since the arrival of Victor Klee in 1953 and Branko Grünbaum in 1966. Klee and Grünbaum have since retired, but with Novik, Sara Billey, and Rekha Thomas, combinatorics at the UW continues to thrive.

Mathematical historians may find it interesting to note that Novik is Branko Grünbaum's mathematical great grand-daughter: Her Ph.D. advisor Gil Kalai was advised by Micha Perles, who in turn was advised by Grünbaum!