Cai and Fonoroff are two of 168 artists, scholars and scientists chosen from more than 3,000 applicants to receive the prestigious award. Fellows are appointed on the basis of unusually distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment.

Cai, whose primary research interest is in computational complexity theory, will use the fellowship award to continue his research endeavors. He is the only recipient in the U.S. and Canada awarded the fellowship in the field of computer science.

Cai joined the UB faculty in 1993 after teaching at Yale and Princeton universities. He was the recipient of a Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1990 and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in Computer Science in 1994. He also received the Hao Wang Prize in 1997 from the International Computing and Combinatorics Conference.

A member of the Scientific Board for the Electronic Colloquium on Computational Complexity, Cai also is associate editor of the Journal of Complexity and an editor of the International Journal of Foundations of Computer Science and The Chicago Journal of Theoretical Computer Science. He has written and published more than 50 research papers.

Fonoroff, who teaches 16mm filmmaking and film analysis at UB, will use the award to produce a short experimental film that explores the ways that primitive and contemporary technologies create and perpetuate romantic desire based on idealization and fantasy.

Fonoroff says that "Radiant Eyes"-the film's working title-creates a cognitive dissonance that raises questions in the mind of the viewer about the intersection between technology, narrative and gender.

Fonoroff was a 1993 fellow of the New York Foundation for the Arts and has received awards from the Jerome Foundation, the Louis B. Mayer Foundation and the Brooklyn Arts and Cultural Association.

A participant in numerous solo and group exhibitions and film festivals on national and international levels, she has taught at Syracuse University, the Massachusetts College of Art, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Hampshire College, Adelphi University and the University of California at San Diego before coming to UB in Fall 1997