Gregory Dick is one of three U-M professors who are among the 126 early-career scientists and scholars from the United States and Canada selected as 2013 Alfred P. Sloan research fellows.

Dick is assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and earth and environmental sciences.

The awards were announced Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013 by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The fellows, who are nominated by their peers and chosen by a panel of senior scholars, each receive $50,000.

Dick's research program focuses on the interactions between microbiology and geochemistry in deep-sea hydrothermal vent plumes. Funding from the Sloan Foundation will help support deep-sea experiments to test hypotheses regarding the metabolisms of major microbial groups and their roles in the global carbon cycle.

"I'm ecstatic," Dick said. "To me, this award is recognition that the work we've been doing is important and exciting.

"One of the things this award is going to allow me to do is extend support to some post-docs in my lab who are working on some really novel aspects that are difficult to get funded by the National Science Foundation because they are somewhat high-risk," Dick said. "For example, one project is to develop computer models of microbial communities, which is a little bit crazy, because microbial communities are very complicated things."

The Sloan program seeks to recognize the achievements of outstanding young scholars in science, mathematics, economics and computer science. Past recipients of Sloan Research Fellowships have gone on to win Nobel prizes, Fields Medals (mathematics), and John Bates Clark Medals (economics).

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a philanthropic, not-for-profit grant-making institution based in New York, established in 1934 by Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr., then-president and chief executive officer of General Motors Corp.

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