Mathematics’ Maria Cameron Receives National Science Foundation CAREER Award
Maria Cameron, an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Maryland, received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for her proposal titled “Computational tools for the analysis of large stochastic networks.” Cameron will use the $400,000 award to develop new methods for analyzing complex networks that arise when modeling complex physical, chemical and biological systems. Examples include the rearrangements and growth of interacting particle clusters and the cell division process. 
“Receiving an NSF CAREER award is a great honor because it represents validation from the contemporary mathematics community of my research and educational activities,” said Cameron. “This award enables me to devote more of my time to creative work, attack hard problems, hire a postdoc and support graduate students as research assistants.”
The goal of the funded research is to develop computational tools for analyzing stochastic processes with widely ranging time scales taking place on large and complex networks. Quantifying rare events in such networks has the potential to advance our understanding of phenomena such as crystal growth and could lead to the industrial design of microstructures based on the self-assembly of interacting particles.
“My interest in networks is rooted in the fact that they allow us to design mathematically tractable models of complex phenomena that preserve their important features while avoiding problems associated with high dimensionality and complex geometry,” said Cameron.
Before joining the UMD faculty in 2010, Cameron was a Courant instructor in the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. She earned her master’s from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in Russia in 1998 and her doctoral degree in applied mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2007.
The CAREER award is the NSF's most prestigious award in support of junior faculty members who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. The award provides five years of financial support.
Media Relations Contact: Abby Robinson, 301-405-5845, abbyr@umd.edu
Writer: Mary Kearney
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