Three faculty members from UNC have been awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship.

It is a two year grant that is given to early-career scientists and provides $55,000 to be used for their research.

Jillian Dempsey and Alexander Miller are both assistant professors in the Chemistry Department and Zhen Gu is an assistant professor in UNC and NC State’s joint biomedical engineering program.

Gu’s work on diabetes includes the development of a “smart insulin patch” that mimics the function of pancreatic cells and multiple injectable nanoscale systems that can help to regulate insulin.

Depmsey works to efficiently capture sunlight in artificial system and carry out fuel-producing reactions to store the sun’s energy.

Miller also researches energy. He looks for new catalysts for use in the sustainable manufacture of next-generation fuels and was named to the Forbes “30 Under 30” list.

The Sloan fellowships are awarded in eight scientific fields: chemistry, computer science, economics, mathematics, evolutionary and computational molecular biology, neuroscience, ocean sciences, and physics.

Dempsey, Miller and Gu make a total of 44 Sloan Fellows at UNC since 1958.

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