Boiteau and Roberts receive prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship for early-career researchers

Winners receive a two-year, $75,000 fellowship to advance research

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (02/18/2025) — University of Minnesota Twin Cities College of Science and Engineering Assistant Professors Rene Boiteau and Courtney Roberts are two of only 126 early-career researchers who will receive a prestigious 2025 Sloan Research Fellowship. Awarded annually by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the fellowships honor researchers whose creativity, innovation and research accomplishments make them stand out as the next generation of leaders.

"The Sloan Research Fellows represent the very best of early-career science, embodying the creativity, ambition and rigor that drive discovery forward,” says Adam F. Falk, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “These extraordinary scholars are already making significant contributions, and we are confident they will shape the future of their fields in remarkable ways.”

Rene Boiteau

Rene Boiteau is a College of Science and Engineering Assistant Professor in the department of Chemistry with a graduate faculty appointment in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. His research is focused on addressing the growing impact of humans on the environment, which has vastly outpaced our ability to monitor and prevent negative consequences of industrialization, pollution and climate change. The Boiteau Group works to address critical knowledge gaps regarding the mechanisms by which plants and microbes control elemental cycles in oceans, rivers, industrial/wastewaters, sediments and soils by transforming various organic and inorganic chemical species.

"Receiving the Sloan Research Fellowship is a tremendous honor,” said Boiteau. “This award will enable us to advance our research on the environmental reactivity of nutrients and metals, contributing to the development of strategies for improving water quality."

Boiteau was previously a faculty member at Oregon State University, with a joint appointment in the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Environmental Molecular Sciences Division. Boiteau received his bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University, master’s degree from Cambridge University and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Some of his previous awards include ACS Environmental Au ‘Rising Star’ and the Simons Foundation Early Career Investigator in Marine Microbial Ecology and Evolution.

Courtney Roberts

Courtney Roberts is a College of Science and Engineering Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry. Her research uses inorganic and organometallic chemistry and catalysis to solve fundamental problems in organic chemistry related to energy and pharmaceuticals. Her group’s recent paper showed how they were able to create a highly reactive chemical compound that has eluded scientists for more than 120 years.

“In today’s funding climate, it is such a privilege to be a recipient of the Sloan Research Fellowship to be able to pursue new research ideas. I am grateful to private funding foundations for continuing to sponsor much needed fundamental and translational research,” said Roberts. “It is an honor to be part of such a distinguished group of scientists. I hope to rise to the occasion and be able to make a lasting impact on chemistry research following the legacy of many Sloan Fellows.”

Prior to joining the University of Minnesota, Roberts was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Michigan. Roberts received her bachelor’s degree from Pepperdine University and Ph.D. from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Some of her other awards include the McKnight Land-Grant Professorship, 3M Alumni Professorship, NSF CAREER Award, an Amgen Young Investigator Award, the ACS DOC Young Investigator title and the 2024 Thieme Chemistry Journal Award. 

In addition to Boiteau and Roberts, Assistant Professor Jean-Paul Noel from the University of Minnesota Medical School also received the 2025 Sloan Research Fellowship.

More than 1,000 researchers were nominated this year for the Sloan Research Fellowship. Winners receive a two-year, $75,000 fellowship to advance their research.

Read more about the Sloan Research Fellowship and see the full list of 2025 recipients.