Faculty Fellowships

Funding collaborations between faculty in New York and Abu Dhabi.

19 WSN Faculty Fellowships

Since its inception in the spring of 2020, the 19 Washington Square North Faculty Fellows program has funded a series of original collaborations between NYU faculty in Abu Dhabi and New York. Fellows have been selected from science, engineering, social science, and the humanities, and have often joined forces with colleagues in disciplines other than their own.

Their joint research and/or artistic accomplishments contribute to scholarly activity at 19 Washington Square North, the home of NYUAD in New York, as well as to faculty synergies across NYU's global network and to their fields' knowledge and creative production. Each Fellow also puts together an academic program or creative event at 19 WSN.

The Fellows program aims to foster and strengthen connections between NYU faculty in Abu Dhabi and New York, as well as to enhance academic activity at 19 Washington Square North, the home of NYUAD in New York. The 19 WSN Faculty Fellowships are made possible by the generous support of the NYUAD Office of the Vice-Chancellor and NYU Office of the Provost. 

Application Information

2026-2027 Faculty Fellowship Awards

Theorizing Collaboration: A World Built Together

Theorizing Collaboration: A World Built Together takes inspiration from the Spanish philosopher Marina Garcés and her 2025 publication, La passió dels estranys. Una filosofia de l’amistat (The Passion of Strangers. A Philosophy of Friendship) in which Garces suggests that the conjunction of differences, their points of contact, and their magnetic connectivity produce unforeseen solidarities. NYUNY/NYUAD professors Lori Cole and Terri Geis, alongside María Clara Bernal, the 2027 Andrés Bello Chair in Latin American Cultures and Civilizations, are longtime colleagues and specialists of global surrealism, a movement emphasizing collaborative processes and radical friendships as revolutionary forces. Together, they will organize sessions on discourses of collaboration with invited writers, artists, and philosophers from around the world, not as a source of consensus, but as an unfolding process of strangeness through unexpected freedoms. 

Halting Multiple Sclerosis-Driven Axonal Collapse

Multiple sclerosis (MS) can cause lasting disability when the long fibers that connect nerve cells, called axons, become damaged and eventually break down. While many current MS treatments focus on controlling the immune system, they do not directly protect nerve cells from this irreversible damage. This research aims to understand why some axons are vulnerable to inflammation and whether we can make them more resilient. The team will build a human stem-cell-based model that recreates key features of the nervous system affected by MS, allowing researchers to watch how inflammation damages nerve cells and their connections over time. Ultimately, the project hopes to identify new ways to protect nerve fibers and preserve communication between nerve cells, complementing existing treatments that primarily target inflammation.

Nature's Quantum Compass: Learning from Birds to Build Molecular Spin Sensors

It has long been a mystery how birds can navigate and migrate over large distances. A leading hypothesis is that birds can sense tiny magnetic field changes. This sensing process (magnetoreception) is thought to be enabled by the radical pair mechanism (RPM), a quantum mechanical process through which weak magnetic fields can alter chemical reactions in biological systems. In birds, these processes are thought to produce visionary stimuli which they can use for navigation. Current models for RPMs remain incomplete. Contemporary analyses emphasize coherent singlet-triplet (S-T) mixing between electron spin states, while little is known about the lifetimes of the relevant states in the biological environment. In this project, the PIs will study the lifetimes of the electron spin states and will establish the mechanisms that alter these lifetimes in the biological environment. As a result of these studies, the PIs will test magnetoreception hypotheses and models that could be relevant for different species and physiological conditions. 

Bots Behaving Badly: Understanding Financial Misbehavior in Multi-Agent Systems

Despite promises of enhancing productivity, artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots and agents are now regularly disregarding direct instructions, evading safeguards, and working to deceive both humans and other AI, generating substantial financial harm. As AI systems move beyond singular task-based applications into multi-agent systems (MASs), how such behaviors may spread between agents, be this imitation, influence, or social coercion, and what interventions may be appropriate remains unclear. When bots ‘behave badly’, their respective humans have to financially cover the misbehavior, and may even face legal penalties should their agent commit acts of financial deception or fraud.

In this project, we will study the dynamics for agentic misbehavior as they interact across consumer-facing MASs in financial contexts. Using controlled simulations of interacting agents, we will identify conditions under which misbehavior pertaining to both personal finances spreads to other agents, or is successfully quelled. We will then design and evaluate a set of governance mechanisms, including peer reporting, reputation scoring, and temporary isolation, to assess their effectiveness against harmful misbehavior. The project will produce empirical findings on tipping points, intervention trade-offs, and a digital prototype which we intend to showcase at a public event to demonstrate these effects. Our findings will produce new insights into safer digital technologies with agentic capabilities and what constitutes ‘badly behaving bots’.