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Gruber, alums are Presidential Faculty Fellows

Professor Jonathan Gruber of the Department of Economics and seven MIT alumni/ae are among 30 scientists and engineers who have received 1995 Presidential Faculty Fellow Awards.

The awards program was introduced in 1992 to strengthen the relationship between research and teaching in science and engineering. The award recipients are young faculty members who have demonstrated "excellence and promise" in both areas.

Each Fellow receives a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, spread evenly over five years, primarily for the establishment of innovative research and teaching projects at their institutions.

President Clinton made the final selection of the 30 Presidential Faculty Fellow awards, split evenly between science and engineering fields, from some 300 fellowship nominations. The Fellows gathered in Washington Thursday and Friday (Feb. 22-23) for a program honoring them that included a tour of the White House.

Dr. Gruber, Castle Krob Development Associate Professor of Economics, is on leave from MIT this year as a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge.

He has specialized in the economics and analysis of social insurance programs. His current research focuses on public finance and how taxes and government spending programs affect economic activity.

His research activities, according to his award citation, "include fundamental contributions to understanding the economic impacts of government mandates that require employers to provide specified benefits to their workers."

Professor Gruber received the SB in economics from MIT in 1987 and the PhD from Harvard University in 1992, the year he joined the MIT faculty.

His previous awards include a Harvard Chiles Fellowship, a Sloan Foundation Dissertation Fellowship and a National Science Foundation scholarship.

The 1995 Presidential Faculty Fellows who received doctorates at MIT were: Dr. Charalabos C. Doumanidis of Tufts University (mechanical engineering), Dr. Janet G. Hering of the University of California at Los Angeles (oceanography), Dr. Cato T. Laurencin of the Medical College of Pennsylvania (biochemistry engineering and biotechnology), Dr. Gareth H. McKinley of Harvard University (chemical engineering), Dr. John W. Nielsen-Gammon of Texas A&M University (meteorology), Dr. James S. Nowick of the University of California at Irvine (organic chemistry), and Dr. Erin K. O'Shea of the University of California at San Francisco (chemistry and biochemistry).

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