Northwestern celebrates 22 years as a top Fulbright producer
February 4, 2026
Two Northwestern University professors — Alexander Smith and Allison Strom — have received a prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship for 2025 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Smith and Strom are among 126 outstanding early-career scientists and scholars recognized this year for their creativity, innovation, research accomplishments and potential to contribute substantially to their fields.
The two-year $75,000 fellowship is one of the most competitive and prestigious awards available to early-career researchers. Selected by an independent panel of senior scholars, recipients represent the fields of chemistry, computer science, Earth system science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience and physics.
“The Sloan Research Fellows represent the very best of early-career science, embodying the creativity, ambition and rigor that drive discovery forward,” said Adam F. Falk, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “These extraordinary scholars are already making significant contributions, and we are confident they will shape the future of their fields in remarkable ways.”
Alexander Smith
Smith is an assistant professor of mathematics at Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. He received a Sloan fellowship in mathematics. An expert in number theory, Smith combines algebraic and analytic techniques to uncover statistical patterns in number-theoretic structures. In this work, he aims to understand how seemingly rare or mysterious phenomena actually emerge systematically when viewed at scale.
Smith’s other honors include the David Goss Prize in Number Theory and the 2025 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize.
Allison Strom
Strom is an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Weinberg and member of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) and the NSF-Simons AI Institute for the Sky (SkAI). She received a Sloan fellowship in physics. Strom’s research group observes galaxies throughout cosmic history to determine their internal properties and growth histories. In this work, she aims to understand why galaxies follow different evolutionary paths.
Strom’s other honors include a Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and she was named a Kavli Fellow by the National Academy of Sciences.
Since the fellowships were first awarded in 1955, 171 faculty from Northwestern have received a Sloan Research Fellowship. Many fellows have gone on to become distinguished leaders in science. To date, 58 fellows have received a Nobel Prize, 72 have received the National Medal of Science, 17 have received the Fields Medal in mathematics and 24 have received the John Bates Clark Medal in economics, including every winner since 2009.
