The Department of Mathematics at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is excited to announce that Professor Ben Castle has been named as a 2026 Sloan Research Fellow in Mathematics. This prestigious award is granted to the most promising early-career researchers in the fields of Mathematics, Chemistry, Computer Science, Earth System Science, Economics, Neuroscience, and Physics.
Professor Ben Castle is one of three University of Illinois Professors who have been named as 2026 Sloan Research fellows along with microbiology professor Wei Qin and physics professor Jacob Covey. Together, they are among the cohort of the 126 researchers selected by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation due to “potential to revolutionize their fields of study.”
According to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, these researchers are “among the next generation of scientific leaders in the U.S. and Canada.” The Sloan Research Fellowships are designed to further the foundation’s mission “to improve the welfare of all through the advancement of scientific knowledge.”
Castle will receive $75,000 to support his continued research in mathematical logic. He is particularly interested in Model Theory, a branch of mathematical logic that interrogates the language mathematicians use to define the logic, parameters, and scope through which mathematics is performed. In his research, Castle applies Model Theory to other fields of mathematics such as geometry and combinatorics.