Feng Zhang wins NSF's Alan T. Waterman Award

The National Science Foundation (NSF) named Feng Zhang, the W.M. Keck Assistant Professor of Medical Engineering in MIT’s departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biological Engineering, as the 2014 recipient of its Alan T. Waterman Award.

This award is NSF’s highest honor that annually recognizes an outstanding researcher under the age of 35 and funds his or her research in any field of science or engineering. Zhang, a member of the Broad Institute and MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, researches how the brain works and how to design new molecular tools for manipulating the living brain.

“It is a great pleasure to honor Feng Zhang with this award for his young, impressive career,” said NSF Director France Córdova in a press release. “It is exciting to support his continued fundamental research, which is certain to impact the field of brain research. Imagine a future free of schizophrenia, autism and other brain disorders that wreak havoc on individuals, families and society. Feng’s research moves us in that direction.”

The Waterman award will be presented to Zhang at an evening ceremony at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on May 9. (Read more here.)