Prof. Sam Fey is the fifth Reed junior faculty member in the last eight years to receive the award.
By Cara Nixon
November 13, 2024
Associate Professor of Biology Sam Fey has been awarded the prestigious Lynwood W. Swanson Promise for Scientific Research Award from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust. The award honors junior faculty members who demonstrate exceptional potential to establish exemplary, productive, and sustainable research programs.
Fey received the award at the 33rd annual Murdock College Science Research Conference in early November. Dean of the Faculty and Patricia and Clifford Lunneborg Professor of Psychology Kathy Oleson nominated Fey not only for his cutting-edge research program, but also for his transformative impact on students.
A population and community ecologist, Fey’s work largely focuses on how population and community dynamics respond to, and are shaped by, environmental variation. Since joining the Reed faculty in 2017, he has published 22 scientific papers and mentored 32 summer students and 25 senior thesis students. As a teacher-scholar at Reed, Fey has emphasized inquiry-based research, curricular innovation, and an interdisciplinary approach.
Alongside these accomplishments, Fey also has been named a key leader in employing social justice science education at Reed; has received significant grant funding, including a recent National Science Foundation CAREER award; and finds time to work as a subject-matter editor on the editorial board of the journal Ecology.
Fey is the fifth Reed professor to win the Swanson Promise Award in the last eight years. He joins Prof. Kelly Chacón [chemistry] (2023), Prof. Anna Ritz [biology] (2020), Prof. Alison Crocker [physics] (2019), and Prof. Sarah Schaack [biology] (2016) in the honor.
Prior to joining Reed, Fey earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Hamilton College and a PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology from Dartmouth College, and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University. In her letter nominating Fey, Oleson expressed her high hopes for his future: “He has a passion and love for what he is teaching and researching,” she wrote. “[Fey] is at the beginning of a long and impactful career.”
Reed community members also expressed their enthusiasm for Fey and his work in a video from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust.