Announcing the Recipients of the 2026 Fellows-to-Faculty Awards
The Simons Foundation is pleased to announce the 2026 class of its Fellows-to-Faculty program. The program supports talented early-career scientists and their research visions as they transition into tenure-track faculty positions in areas of science supported by the Simons Foundation’s Autism & Neuroscience division. The 15 recipients will be supported through the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) and the Simons Collaboration on Plasticity and the Aging Brain (SCPAB).
“We are excited to welcome this talented cohort of scientists to the Simons community,” says Kelsey Martin, executive vice president of autism and neuroscience at the Simons Foundation. “Their diverse expertise, including clinical insights and computational approaches, reflects the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of basic science, and we look forward to seeing all that they accomplish.”
Fellows receive funding toward the end of their postdoctoral careers and a $600,000 faculty research grant commitment over three years.
The next Fellows-to-Faculty request for applications will open in October 2026. The program will accept fellows whose research aligns with the missions of SFARI, SCPAB and the Simons Collaboration on Ecological Neuroscience (SCENE). This will be the final cycle to host fellows within SCPAB. Prospective applicants are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the program information page.
Meet the 2026 fellows:
SFARI
Joao Couto, Ph.D.
University of California, Los Angeles
Mechanisms Underlying Altered Brain-Wide Coordination in Autism Models
Gustavo Della Flora Nunes, Ph.D.
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
The Contribution of Oligodendrocytes to Autism Pathogenesis
Erin Duffy, Ph.D.
Harvard University
Neuronal Activity-Regulated RNA Stability Modulates Dosage of Autism-Associated Genes
Travis Faust, Ph.D.
University of Massachusetts Medical School
Microglia-Astrocyte Crosstalk During Synapse Remodeling
Melissa Franch, Ph.D.
Baylor College of Medicine
Single Neuron Computations Underlying Social Interactions in Individuals with Autism
Shohei Furutachi, Ph.D.
University College London
Neural Circuit Mechanism of the “Overfitting Spiral” in Autism
Tamar Regev, Ph.D.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Investigations of Speech Prosody Using Brain Imaging and Neural Network Models in Neurotypical and Autistic Individuals
Diane Shao, MD, Ph.D.
Boston Children’s Hospital
Somatic Genetic Architecture in Autism
Rajan Thakur, Ph.D.
Brown University
Lipid Transport Proteins in Neurodevelopment and Autism
Ruofan Yu, Ph.D.
University of Pennsylvania
Decoding Nuclear Speckle-Driven Gene Regulatory Pathways in Development and Autism
SCPAB
Gregor Bieri, Ph.D.
University of California, San Francisco
Brain Vascular Regulators of Homeostasis and Cognition in Aging
Krithi Irmady, M.D., Ph.D.
Rockefeller University
RNA Regulation in Synaptic Plasticity and Aging
Michael Kelberman, Ph.D.
University of Colorado Boulder
A Novel Model to Investigate How Social Bonds Shape Cognitive Aging
Mauro Monsalve Mercado, Ph.D.
Columbia University
Mechanistic Neural Geometry: Linking Biology to Cognition in the Aging Brain
Titas Sengupta, Ph.D.
Princeton University
Epigenetic Regulation of Memory in Response to Aging and the Environment
