People

Spotlight

Name: Laura Strickler.

Position: Coordinator of process improvement in the Office of Information Technology. Conducting assessments of how the office operates by working with staff and studying processes. Analyzing communication within the office and with customers. Finding ways to improve efficiency.

Quote: “I’ve had four completely different jobs since I started working at the University in 1996. I love having the stability of staying with the same employer while being able to move around and try things out. That’s been very positive for my personality and my desire to learn new things. There’s so much here to challenge me.”

Other interests: Playing mah jongg with a group of Princeton employees. Sea kayaking on vacations to an island off Maine. Playing golf.

Briefs

Robert Marsala, an engineer at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, is this year’s PPPL Distinguished Engineering Fellow.

The laboratory recognized Marsala during a recent ceremony for significant contributions to the advancement of plasma science and electrical engineering technology. The citation noted Marsala for his technical ability, creativity and resourcefulness, as well as for a long history of innovative contributions in the design, fabrication, operation and maintenance of electronic systems that have proven critical to the high-performance, safe and reliable operation of many fusion experiments at the laboratory.

A member of the PPPL staff since 1978, Marsala earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Princeton in 1969. For the last 26 years, he has been responsible for the design of most of the magnetic monitoring and control, as well as coil protection, on PPPL’s major fusion machines.

Joy Montero, associate dean for student life in the Office of the Dean of the Graduate School, was among 14 women from local businesses, organizations and educational institutions recognized at the annual YWCA Princeton’s Tribute to Women Achievement Awards dinner March 9.

The program was established by the YWCA to honor women who have demonstrated exceptional talent and a high level of leadership in their chosen field and who have made significant contributions to their professions.

Montero has been a member of the Graduate School staff since 1986.

The Alfred Sloan Foundation has selected three Princeton faculty members to receive Sloan Research Fellowships, highly competitive, unrestricted grants for outstanding scholars and scientists early in their careers.

Economists Markus Brunnermeier and Helene Rey and computer scientist Olga Troyanskaya were among 116 U.S. researchers chosen for the Sloan fellowship. Each researcher will receive a grant of $45,000 over two years.

Brunnermeier, an assistant professor who joined the faculty in 1999, studies financial crises and significant mispricing of investments due to frictions between institutions, strategic considerations and other motives that are not part of the conventional economic view of the perfectly rational investor.

Rey joined the University in 2000 as an assistant professor in the economics department, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Bendheim Center for Finance. She also studies financial crises and recently has examined the value of international assets and their effect on trade deficits and debts.

Troyanskaya, an assistant professor in computer science and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics since 2003, uses techniques of computer science and mathematics to analyze genome data. Recently, she developed a method for identifying alterations to chromosomes that occur when cells become malignant.