Baruch Professor Wins National Science Foundation CAREER Grant
February 9, 2023
Pablo Soberón, Assistant Professor in Baruch College’s Department of Mathematics, has won a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Grant from the National Science Foundation for $416,784.
The CAREER grant is distinguished from a standard NSF research grant in that it is awarded over the course of five years rather than the typical three, can be given only to pre-tenure assistant professors, and requires a strong educational component in addition to the research.
CAREER grants are widely viewed by the NSF Division of Mathematical Sciences as the highest distinction that the organization can bestow on early-career researchers in the mathematical sciences.
Grant’s Education Component Will Benefit Baruch Students
The research proposed in Professor Soberón’s award is to study the connections between combinatorics and topology using problems in discrete geometry.
Combinatorics is the branch of mathematics which studies the enumeration, combination, and permutation of sets of elements and the mathematical relations that characterize those properties. “This is a very interdisciplinary area of research within pure mathematics,” said Soberón “which I think the reviewers really liked.”
But the research plan does not only concern applications to computational geometry. Like so many of Baruch’s diverse research practices, this project reaches beyond its discipline and into the lives of students.
“The strongest real-world benefits of the grant will most likely come from its educational component,” Soberón said. “That educational plan is aimed to benefit Baruch College and CUNY students directly.”
Supporting Communities Underrepresented in Mathematics
While the Math Department at Baruch currently runs a tremendously successful “Research Experience for Undergraduates“ (REU) summer program that helps students advance toward graduate degrees in mathematics, one goal of Soberón’s grant is to establish a summer program that will help prepare CUNY students to be competitive candidates for such REU experiences around the US.
It therefore includes support for groups that have been historically underrepresented in the field and connects with Baruch’s mission to provide a high-quality education in the arts and sciences to all people.
A Strong History of CAREER Grant Winners at Baruch
With this win, Soberón joins the three other active CAREER grants at Baruch College. Baruch’s other recipients include Andrew Obus, Louis-Pierre Arguin, and Jean Gaffney of the Department of Natural Sciences.
Soberón credits this vibrant community with helping him secure his own win. “The supportive environment in the Mathematics Department at Baruch College has been a perfect place to form my career,” he said.
###