Tara Smiley, an assistant professor in Stony Brook University’s Department of Ecology and Evolution in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been named a 2026 Sloan Research Fellow.
The fellowship honors exceptional early-career researchers at United States and Canadian educational institutions, whose creativity, innovation and research accomplishments make them stand out as the next generation of leaders. Smiley is one of 126 researchers selected this year.
Smiley is an evolutionary ecologist who studies how climate and landscape history shape the diversity, biogeography and ecological structure of mammalian faunas across spatio-temporal scales. By testing hypotheses, she looks to see how changes in climate, tectonic activity, topographic complexity, and habitat heterogeneity impact communities and ecological processes at local scales and govern diversity at regional scales.
Smiley’s research group integrates fieldwork, specimen-based research and quantitative paleobiology. Primary tools of the group’s research include stable isotope ecology and paleoenvironmental reconstruction, analysis of trait variation, diversification analysis and coupling of geological and biological modeling approaches. The group has worked in western North America and in the East African Rift, which are both considered tectonically active and dynamic landscapes with high species richness today and in the past. Along with collaborators at Stony Brook’s Turkana Basin Institute, the team is actively developing projects in the fossil-rich setting of the Turkana Basin in Kenya.
“The Sloan Research Fellows are among the most promising early-career researchers in the U.S. and Canada, already driving meaningful progress in their respective disciplines,” said Stacie Bloom, president and chief executive officer of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “We look forward to seeing how these exceptional scholars continue to unlock new scientific advancements, redefine their fields and foster the wellbeing and knowledge of all.”
“We’re thrilled to see Tara Smiley recognized as a Sloan Research Fellow,” said Associate Professor Joshua S. Rest, chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolution. “Her research asks a deceptively simple question: how have Earth’s changing landscapes helped shape the tree of life? She connects Earth history to biodiversity by integrating fossils, modern ecosystems and quantitative modeling. In an era of rapid global change, that kind of boundary-crossing work is essential for understanding how life responds to environmental change.”
Sloan Research Fellows are awarded a flexible two-year fellowship of $75,000 to support and advance their research.
Smiley oversees the Smiley Lab in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University. She has received funding from the National Science Foundation, including a recent Faculty Early CAREER grant. She currently teaches upper-division undergraduate and graduate courses and has contributed to dozens of interdisciplinary papers centered on organismal response to environmental change across spatial and temporal scales.
Need good research on the dangerous effects of global warming and how to move toward a green planet with sustainable energy sources.
I love her research’s “deceptively simple question” – “ how have Earth’s changing landscapes help shape the tree of life?”. The Earth itself is evolving – constantly and, from where we stand mostly imperceptibly (although at times briefly violently) – how brilliant to consider the impact of that evolution on the creatures who inhabit it!