Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM

Physics Professor Lisa Manning Named Sloan Research Fellow

Tuesday, February 18, 2014, By Kathleen Haley
Share
AwardsCollege of Arts and SciencesfacultyResearch and Creative

M. Lisa Manning, assistant professor of physics in The College of Arts and Sciences, studies the mechanics of how biological cells move and grow, and how granular materials fail.

M. Lisa Manning

M. Lisa Manning

As an early career scientist, she is being recognized for her work with a 2014 Sloan Research Fellowship by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Manning, whose research focuses on understanding the mechanical properties of biological tissues and nonbiological materials, is one of 126 U.S. and Canadian scholars who received this year’s award. The Sloan Research Fellowship honors young researchers whose achievements and potential identify them as the next generation of scientific leaders.

Fellows receive $50,000 to further their research.

“For more than half a century, the Sloan Foundation has been proud to honor the best young scientific minds and support them during a crucial phase of their careers when early funding and recognition can really make a difference,” said Paul L. Joskow, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “These researchers are pushing the boundaries of scientific knowledge in unprecedented ways.”

Candidates for the Sloan Research Fellowships are nominated by fellow scientists. Fellows are selected by an independent panel of senior scholars on the basis of a candidate’s independent research accomplishments, creativity and potential to become a leader in his or her field.

“The Department of Physics nominated Professor Manning because of her outstanding accomplishments, future promise as a scientist and her leadership abilities,” says Alan Middleton, professor and department chair. “She brings energy and depth to many activities—she has pioneered new technologies in the classroom and has great enthusiasm for teaching. In her research, she uses computers and sophisticated theoretical methods to study experiments on both cell migration and granular—sand-like—materials.”

Manning oversees the Manning Group, a team of students and postdoctoral researchers, in the Department of Physics. She is working on several projects to understand how interactions between cells generate the mechanical properties of tissues, which is important in embryonic development, wound healing and cancer.

“I was ecstatic when I heard the news about the fellowship. This recognition means that other well-respected scientists find my research interesting and relevant, which is a huge validation of my work,” Manning says. “It also highlights the fact that Syracuse is a great research university with a world-class physics department. I hope that this award will attract students and scientists who can further improve our research and help us make an impact in the world.”

Manning will use some of the funding to support a project with Jeff Amack at Upstate Medical University to understand how cell shapes and mechanical interactions influence the patterns that occur in embryonic development.

“I will also use some of the funds to support researchers in my group who study the mechanical properties of disordered, non-biological materials, such as granular solids or recently discovered bulk metallic glasses,” Manning says. “These materials tend to break or fail along poorly understood fissures called shear bands, and our goal is to understand and predict these failures.”

Manning, who also leads graduate student recruiting in the physics department, has also built collaborations with researchers at Princeton University and in the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering at SU.

“Professor Manning is well poised to achieve fundamental scientific advances, given her knowledge and her ability to find important connections between people and between various scientific fields,” Middleton says. “Her work on the motion of cells will lead to a better understanding of development in organisms and abnormal migration, as in cancer.”

Among her many published works, Manning co-authored, with three other scientists, a September article in the journal Interface that presented their work on the development of a model for studying tissue.

In January, Manning was awarded a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for “Flow, Failure and Migration in Glassy Materials.”

Her expertise has been sought by universities and institutes across the United States and internationally, as an invited speaker at various seminars, workshops and colloquiums.

Manning joined SU’s faculty in 2011, after serving as a postdoctoral fellow in the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science. She earned an M.A. degree and a Ph.D. in physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a B.S. in physics and a B.A. in mathematics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

The 2014 Sloan Research Fellows, who hail from 61 colleges and universities, represent a variety of research interests in eight scientific and technical fields—chemistry, computer science, economics, mathematics, evolutionary and computational molecular biology, neuroscience, ocean sciences and physics.

 

  • Author

Kathleen Haley

  • Recent
  • Syracuse University Press Participating in Path to Open Program
    Friday, September 29, 2023, By Cristina Hatem
  • A&S Chemistry Professor Receives Award From the American Chemical Society
    Friday, September 29, 2023, By News Staff
  • ‘Guys and Dolls’ Opens Syracuse University Department of Drama 2023/24 Season
    Friday, September 29, 2023, By Joanna Penalva
  • Libraries Add MindSpa Wellness Rooms
    Friday, September 29, 2023, By Cristina Hatem
  • iSchool Professors, Students Honored With ALISE Awards
    Friday, September 29, 2023, By Anya Woods

More In STEM

A&S Chemistry Professor Receives Award From the American Chemical Society

Robert Doyle, Dean’s Professor of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) and associate professor of pharmacology at SUNY Upstate Medical University, received the 2022 American Chemical Society Central New York Section Award in the field of chemistry…

Syracuse University Announces the Opening of the Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy and Astrophysics

As Albert Einstein predicted in his theory of relativity more than one hundred years ago, gravitational waves have been rippling through the fabric of space-time since the dawn of the cosmos. Only in the past decade have scientists observed actual…

iSchool Professors, Students Honored With ALISE Awards

Two students and three professors from the School of Information Studies (iSchool) were recently honored with prestigious awards from the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE). Assistant Professor LaVerne Gray was awarded the Norman Horrocks Leadership Award for demonstrating outstanding leadership…

Ian Hosein Awarded New Patent For Process that Generates Energy from Saltwater

The lack of access to clean drinking water impacts billions worldwide. With an estimated 46% of the global population affected, underdeveloped communities don’t have the means to utilize efficient technology for water purification. As the percentage of those affected grows,…

Setting the Agenda in Biology Research: 2 Professors Join NIH Peer Review Committees

The Center for Scientific Review (CSR) is known as the “gateway” for National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant applications. Expert peer review groups—also called study sections—formed by the CSR assess more than 75% of the thousands of research grant applications…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • @SUCampus
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2023 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.