Three University of California, Davis, faculty, including a married couple, have won Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowships worth $40,000 over two years. Kimberley McAllister, 34, is an assistant professor in the Department of Neurology and a member of the Center for Neuroscience. She studies how connections between nerve cells form and stabilize as the brain develops. These connections, or synapses, control how the brain processes information. McAllister joined UC Davis in January 2000, following postdoctoral research at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif. She has a bachelor's degree from Davidson College and a doctorate in neurobiology from Duke University. Martin Usrey, 37, is an assistant professor in the Division of Biological Sciences and is also a member of the Center for Neuroscience. He studies how the brain organizes and processes visual information, allowing us to see the visual world. Usrey worked at Rockefeller University, Harvard Medical School and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory before joining UC Davis in January 2000. He has a bachelor's degree from UC San Diego, a master's from San Diego State University and a doctorate from Duke University. McAllister and Usrey were married last year. Although their research programs are separate, their interests overlap because they study the visual system at different levels. "It's nice for us, because we can talk a lot of science at home," said McAllister. Working in the same field, they often apply for the same grants, she said. "It's a lot of fun to both get the good news on the same day," she said. Matthew Augustine, 33, joined the UC Davis chemistry department as an assistant professor in 1997. Augustine uses nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to study the structure of molecules. He is especially interested in combining NMR with other methods to study the interactions between proteins, DNA and metal atoms. Augustine has a bachelor's degree from Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. from Yale. Before joining UC Davis, he was a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley. He was awarded a prestigious David and Lucille Packard Fellowship in 1998 and an NSF career award in 1999. Recipients of the Sloan fellowship often go on to be outstanding professors, according to chemistry department chair William Jackson. "It's an outstanding honor for any young faculty member," he said. Sloan fellowships are given annually to outstanding young scientists in the fields of physics, chemistry, pure or applied mathematics, neuroscience, economics or computer science. This year, the foundation awarded 104 fellowships at 51 institutions. Since the program began in 1955, 26 Sloan fellows have gone on to win Nobel prizes. More information: http://www.sloan.org/programs/scitech_fellowships.htm