Biological Engineering Professor Receives Prestigious NSF CAREER Award

Yu Huang, an assistant professor of biological engineering at Utah State University, recently received one of the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards for early-career faculty.

In February, Huang was awarded a $600,000 grant through the foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Program, CAREER. This program provides awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

The grant money will support Huang’s micro-brain research by allowing him to start a new project to study the impact of the Zika virus on human brain architectures. It will also support Huang’s education outreach efforts and collaboration with math and antiviral researchers on campus.

“This is definitely a wonderful opportunity and in many ways,” Huang said. “The grant is a fascinating opportunity for us to pick up this wonderful idea and be able to expand it and make it into a complete project.”

This is the third time Huang applied for this grant. Huang said he received a tremendous amount of continued support from the college, university, and department, which carried him through this long journey of applications.

He said it’s exciting to see the growth in his applications over the past few years and to be recognized by the National Science Foundation.