One of the enduring puzzles of hearing loss is the decline in a person’s ability to determine where a sound originates, a key survival faculty that allows animals – from lizards to humans – to pinpoint the location of danger, prey and group members. In modern times, finding a lost cell phone by using the application "Find My Device,” just to find it had slipped under a sofa pillow, relies on minute differences in the ringing sound that reaches the ears.

Casey Diekman, associate professor of mathematics at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), has been named recipient of a prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program Award to the United Kingdom in Mathematical Biology.  

Faced with a formidable list of nominees for the annual Excellence in Research Prize and Medal, the Board of Overseers opted this year for its own brand of novelty and innovation: the prize committee picked three. The sector-spanning winners, all at the forefront of their fields, included a solar physicist, a chemical engineer and a neurobiologist.