Shark Researcher Wins Prestigious Sloan Award

University of Victoria,
British Columbia, Canada

Media Release

Contact: Phil Saunders (UVic Communications)
22. February 2012

UVic biology professor and researcher Julia Baum was named among 126 recipients of the 2012 Sloan Fellowships, announced by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York last week. Since 1955, the annual award has been identifying early-career scientists and scholars whose potential and achievements identify them as rising stars.

This is the first year the Sloan Award has included ocean sciences in this program.
“I am deeply honored to have been chosen for one of this year’s Sloan Fellowships,” Baum says, “and I’m thrilled that the foundation is starting to support research in ocean sciences.”

Baum’s research explores the impact of fishing on the life of predatory species, such as sharks. Over the next two years, with the assistance of the $50,000 given by the Sloan Foundation and a lab she directs, Baum will explore the role of these predators on coral reefs, and how the impacts of overfishing and climate change alter these species and systems.

In 1999, UVic astronomer Julio Navarro won the award. Since the award was established, the Nobel committee has acknowledged more than 20 recipients with a prize.

Source: UVic