The Pew Charitable Trusts has named Sohini Ramachandran, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences, an award bestowed upon only 22 promising young scientists this year. As a winner of the highly competitive grant, Ramachandran will receive $240,000 over four years for her research using mathematical and statistical models and computer simulations to make inferences about human population histories from the genetic variations found in individuals. Craig Mello, a Nobel laureate and 1982 graduate of Brown, chaired Pew’s National Advisory Committee. “Giving young scientists the means and the confidence to pursue outside-the-box research is vital to the advancement of biomedical science,” he said. In the last five years, two other Brown faculty, Erica Larschan and Gilad Barnea, have also been named Pew Scholars.