By Tom Fleischman for the Cornell Chronicle.
Austin Benson, assistant professor of computer science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, has received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award. This award—with financial support spread across the next five years—supports early-career faculty who have, according to the NSF, "the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization."
Benson will use his award to further develop his research on higher-order network analysis, which develops new algorithms for analyzing, mining and learning from data arising from interconnected systems, such as social, information, financial and biological networks. The ability to understand, design, control and make predictions about networked systems is crucial to improving physical infrastructure, the national defense and the health of the economy. The award will also fund a research-based, interactive summer workshop for college students designed to broaden participation in computing-related postgraduate education.
Earlier this year, Rachit Agarwal, Eshan Chattopadhyay, Chris De Sa, and Owolabi Legunsen also received Early Career Award distinction.
A version of this story originally appeared in the Cornell Chronicle.