Applications for Fellows-to-Faculty Awards Now Open

Scientists in a discussion at a table. — Kartik Pattabiraman and Austin Coley attend a workshop at the 2025 Fellows to Faculty meeting. DeShaun Craddock/Simons Foundation

The Simons Foundation’s Autism & Neuroscience division is now accepting applications for the next class of its Fellows-to-Faculty Award program. This program supports talented early career scientists by facilitating their transition into tenure-track faculty positions. We offer the program to nurture new talent in the basic sciences and to broaden the community of scientists contributing to the scientific missions of our programs. We are seeking proposals from senior postdoctoral researchers or equivalent researchers with a scientific vision for their future independent laboratory that advances the mission of the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) or Simons Collaboration on Plasticity and the Aging Brain (SCPAB).

This program provides each awardee with funding toward the end of their postdoctoral career and a $600,000, three-year faculty research grant. Fellows additionally engage with a community of investigators and receive mentoring and peer support.

This request for applications (RFA) is intended for Ph.D.- or M.D.-holding scientists currently in mentored research training positions who intend to seek tenure-track research faculty positions during the upcoming academic job cycle.

Applicants may submit to SFARI, SCPAB or both. We welcome applications from scientists with a previous background in these areas and those newly applying their expertise to advance the missions of SFARI or SCPAB.

For this application cycle, we are introducing two unique tracks within our Fellows-to-Faculty community. These tracks will ensure that our scientific communities are enriched with expertise and perspectives that enhance the pursuit of science relevant to the mission of SFARI and SCPAB. All applicants will be considered for the General Track for SFARI and/or SCPAB, as indicated in their application. Applicants have the option of additionally selecting whether they would like to be considered for either of the following tracks within each science area:

Computational Scientist Track: The computational science track seeks senior postdoctoral fellows with strong computational or theoretical backgrounds who aim to bring their approaches to work on key questions related to the SFARI and/or SCPAB missions.

Clinical Scientist Track: The clinical scientist track seeks applicants with clinical doctoral degrees (M.D. and/or Ph.D., or equivalent doctoral degree in clinical discipline) who are pursuing independent research careers with a scientific focus that aligns with our interest areas in basic science (in humans or model systems) in SFARI and/or SCPAB.

The Simons Foundation hosted an informational webinar about the Fellows-to-Faculty Award on November 5, 2025, from 1 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. ET on Zoom. Interested applicants are encouraged to review the recording here.

More details on scope and eligibility can be found in the full RFA, and an overview of the program can be found on the Fellows-to-Faculty Award information page. The deadline for application submission is January 14, 2026, at 12 p.m. (noon) ET.