March 4, 2025 | Sarah Al-Arshani

Computational Astrophysicist Daniel Anglés-Alcázar Awarded Sloan Research Fellowship

Anglés-Alcázar, assistant professor of physics, was one of 126 outstanding early-career scientists to be selected for the honor from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation this year

Sun setting behind the Gant Complex. Jan. 18, 2022. (Sean Flynn)

Daniel Anglés-Alcázar, assistant professor of physics, has been awarded a 2025 Sloan Research Fellowship, one of the most competitive honors for early-career researchers in the United States and Canada.  

Anglés-Alcázar was one of 126 scientists selected by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for the fellowship, which recognizes researchers for their exceptional creativity and potential to lead in their fields. The fellowship provides a two-year, $75,000 grant to support research at the recipient’s discretion. 

Daniel Anglés-Alcázar, assistant professor of physics.
Daniel Anglés-Alcázar, assistant professor of physics and 2025 Sloan Research Fellow. (Photo courtesy of Daniel Anglés-Alcázar).

“It’s a great honor to be selected as a Sloan Fellow,” says Anglés-Alcázar. “This is a significant recognition for our research program, and I am very grateful to the long-term collaborators and mentors that have supported me throughout my career.” 

“The Sloan Research Fellows represent the very best of early-career science, embodying the creativity, ambition, and rigor that drive discovery forward,” says Adam F. Falk, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “These extraordinary scholars are already making significant contributions, and we are confident they will shape the future of their fields in remarkable ways.” 

A computational astrophysicist, Anglés-Alcázar’s research focuses on developing simulations on supercomputers to understand how galaxies form and evolve. He uses theoretical models to interpret observations of galaxies, including how supermassive black holes impact galaxy evolution.  

Observations suggest that when supermassive black holes grow, they release a huge amount of energy in the form of powerful winds or large-scale jets. However, the details of this process remain a mystery, according to Anglés-Alcázar.  

“It’s still a big enigma,” he says. “In our models, we can make predictions of what happens when supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies power these large-scale winds or jets. Based on those models, we can infer that supermassive black holes indeed play a key role in how massive galaxies evolve, as well as the larger scale structures in the universe.” 

Simulation modeling the evolution of a group of galaxies (left) and zooming in down to the nuclear region of the main galaxy (right).
Simulation modeling the evolution of a group of galaxies (left) and zooming in down to the nuclear region of the main galaxy (right), where the central supermassive black hole grows and affects its environment. (Photo courtesy of Daniel Anglés-Alcázar and the FIRE collaboration).

Prior to joining UConn in 2019, Anglés-Alcázar was a research fellow with the Flatiron Institute from 2017 to 2019. In 2014, he was selected as a postdoctoral fellow with the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) at Northwestern University. Most recently, he was one of 25 recipients of the 2023 Cottrell Scholar Awards from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. 

Anglés-Alcázar plans to use the funding to support student researchers, fund conference travel, and enhance computational resources for his work. 

“Receiving this fellowship is really a great honor,” says Anglés-Alcázar. “I’m also very grateful to the students and postdocs in my group for the amazing work they do, and just excited that this award will enable us to continue pushing the frontiers of computational galaxy formation in new directions.”