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Mathematics & Physical Sciences

Scientific Software Research Faculty Award

Policies and
Procedures
Open
Application Deadline
Important Dates
  • LOI Deadline (12 p.m. (noon) EST)
  • LOI Notification
  • Full Proposal Deadline:
    No later than three months prior to the award start date
  • Award Start Date:
    By September 1, 2027
Apply Now
Important Dates
  • LOI Deadline (12 p.m. (noon) EST)
  • LOI Notification
  • Full Proposal Deadline:
    No later than three months prior to the award start date
  • Award Start Date:
    By September 1, 2027
Contact Info

The Simons Foundation’s Mathematics & Physical Sciences (MPS) division invites applications for its Scientific Software Research Faculty Award (SSRF Award) in the MPS program for new faculty appointments to start no later than September 1, 2027. Appointments must begin on the first of the month.

Please note that in the event of budgetary or other considerations, The Simons Foundation, Inc. (“the Foundation” or “SF”) reserves the right to refer an application to The Simons Foundation International, Ltd. (“SFI”) for consideration and funding. SFI and SF have entered into an agreement pursuant to which SF provides program operations and grant administration services, including payment processing, to SFI. SFI grant recipients are subject to SF Policies and Procedures.

Rationale:

Scientific software is a critical component of research, enabling scientists to analyze and reduce data, perform simulations, automate tasks, and produce and visualize results. As such, the development and maintenance of broadly-applicable scientific software has become an increasingly important intellectual endeavor. While scientific software experts are crucial members of research ventures, their career prospects beyond postdoctoral-level positions are limited.

The Simons Foundation invites applications for funding to support new research professor positions (e.g., “clinical professor,” “professor of practice” or “research professor,” the titles and roles depending on the university) in existing academic departments (the “host institutions”) to be filled by scientific software-focused researchers. The SSRF Award will support researchers who have a strong track record of leadership in scientific software development. The aim of this program is to stimulate the development and maintenance of core scientific software infrastructure in academic environments through creating a new, long-term, faculty-level career path.

Level and Duration of Funding:

A Scientific Software Fellowship provides five years of salary support for the awardee’s academic-year salary and fringe benefits, whether normally paid over 9 or 12 months, as follows: 100 percent salary for each of the first two years and then 50 percent each year for next three years. For the last three years, the host university is expected to provide the other 50 percent of salary support each year through existing department channels. Note: summer salary is not an allowable cost.

The fellowship will also provide a yearly $50,000 research allowance for the awardee, plus indirect costs for the host institution (limited to 20 percent of the modified total direct costs, see Simons Foundation Policies). This funding is potentially renewable.

Allowable Expenses:

The $50,000 allowance provided to the awardee may be used at the awardee’s discretion to support expenses in the following categories:

  • General research expenses
  • Salary support and related benefits, including tuition support, for staff/research scientists and postdoctoral, graduate and/or undergraduate research assistants
  • Scientific domestic or international travel by the awardee and their students
  • Small equipment, supplies and other expenses, such as computers, computer support, publication expenses, stationery, books and membership fees
  • Expenses related to travel or hosting scientific visitors and collaborators
  • Workshop development and organization

The total allowance can be allocated across years as needed, as long as the total request does not exceed $250,000 over 5 years.

Eligibility:

Applicants must have a Ph.D. (or equivalent degree) in mathematics, astronomy or theoretical physics and have played a leading role in developing or maintaining scientific software in one or more of these fields. Awards may be hosted at any public or private Ph.D.-granting institution in the United States. There are no citizenship or country requirements to apply.

Awardees must be hired into a new clinical professor, professor of practice or equivalent-level positions in a mathematics, astronomy, physics or similar department such that a maximum of 50 percent of their time is dedicated to teaching and/or supporting computational efforts within the department. The position need not be tenure track but must not be term limited. Awardees must be allowed to have principal investigator (PI) status on grants.

As part of the program obligations, awardees will be invited and expected to attend an annual meeting held at and paid by the Simons Foundation.

Simons Foundation employees who receive a W-2 (Wage and Tax Statement) from the Simons Foundation, including employees of the Flatiron Institute, may not apply as a principal investigator (PI) to any Simons Foundation or Simons Foundation International Requests for Applications (RFAs) released by the Simons Foundation. PIs and any project personnel listed on the application who will receive funding for salary, travel, support for students, postdocs or research staff, lab equipment, computing time or other individual expenses may not be employees of the Simons Foundation, which includes the Flatiron Institute.

Number of Awards:

The Simons Foundation expects to fund up to six new fellows through this call.

Application Process:

SSRF awards are granted through a two-stage process.

First Stage:

The first stage (“LOI”) is a competitive process in which applications are reviewed by a committee of scientific domain and software experts. SSRF awardees are selected based on this first stage application. Upon selection, the applicant must find an eligible host institution and be hired into an eligible position (as described above) and start by September 1, 2027.

Letters of Intent (LOIs) must be completed electronically and submitted via the Simon Award Manager (SAM) by January 21, 2026, at 12 p.m. (noon) EST.

Second Stage:

The second stage (“Full Proposal”) is non-competitive. Full proposals should be submitted as soon as the SSR award faculty hiring has been completed and will be due no later than three months prior to the award start date, and not later than June 1, 2027 for September 1, 2027 start dates. The proposal will affirm that the position meets the eligibility criteria outlined above.

Please refer to the How to Apply tab for further instructions. 

Our Commitment to Expanding Pathways to Science and Opportunities for All

Many of the greatest ideas and discoveries come from a diverse mix of minds, backgrounds and experiences. The Simons Foundation is committed to advancing basic science and mathematics to benefit humankind and expand our collective understanding of our world. As part of our mission, we support partners, programs and initiatives that seek to broaden the scientific community and open pathways to science and mathematics careers.

The Simons Foundation provides equal opportunities to all applicants for funding without regard to race, religion, color, age, sex, pregnancy, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic disposition, neurodiversity, disability, veteran status or any other protected category under federal, state and local law.

Apply Now
Important Dates
  • LOI Deadline (12 p.m. (noon) EST)
  • LOI Notification
  • Full Proposal Deadline:
    No later than three months prior to the award start date
  • Award Start Date:
    By September 1, 2027
Contact Info

The deadline to submit Letters of Intent (LOIs) is January 21, 2026, at 12 p.m. (noon) EST. Late applications will not be accepted. Applications must be submitted via the Simons Award Manager (SAM), https://sam.simonsfoundation.org/. Please click on the Funding Opportunities icon. Applications should be started and submitted under the applicant’s own account in the Simons Award Manager (SAM). For the Scientific Software Research Faculty Award application, please click on Create Application and then on Begin Application. After creating an application, navigate to the Applications in Progress section on your homepage to access the in-progress application.

Informational videos on submitting applications in SAM can be found here.

LOI and proposal attachments should be single-spaced and in a common typeface and font size no smaller than 10 points. Margins must be at least half an inch in all directions.

Please note that in the event of budgetary or other considerations, The Simons Foundation, Inc. (“the Foundation” or “SF”) reserves the right to refer an application to The Simons Foundation International, Ltd. (“SFI”) for consideration and funding. SFI and SF have entered into an agreement pursuant to which SF provides program operations and grant administration services, including payment processing, to SFI. SFI grant recipients are subject to SF Policies and Procedures.

Please complete the application as follows:

Stage 1 – LOI:

  1. Proposal Tab:
    1. Applicant Details: Complete all required fields for the applicant/PI, including academic rank, position/title and ORCID iD. This information should be completed in the applicant’s profile. The applicant may use the Edit Profile button to update their information as needed. Please note that the institution in the LOI application should reflect the applicant’s current institution.
    2. Academic Degrees: Add/modify degrees (required).
    3. Application Details: Enter the title of the LOI application.
    4. Proposal – Upload required files as follows:
      1. Research Statement (two-page limit, including references and figures, which can be embedded within the text): Must outline the scientific background and motivation of the applicant’s research program.
      2. Scientific Vision Statement (four-page limit, including references and figures, which can be embedded within the text): Must describe the scientific vision of the research program and a plan for future research and software development. The statement should include a roadmap and software sustainability plan that outlines (1) new functionality development (to enable new scientific directions or questions), (2) work that will enhance the openness, reusability or access to the software and (3) work that will improve the sustainability of the project by implementing or supporting best practices for software sustainability (for example, by substantially developing or improving documentation and educational materials, working on testing and continuous integration systems, establishing contributor/maintainer mentorship programs or running workshops to train new users and developers).
      3. Ph.D. Degree Field: Enter the field for which the applicant received their Ph.D. degree.
      4. Applicant Biosketch: A SciENcv or fillable PDF NIH- or NSF-style biosketch. Include information about key software products and contributions in the “products” section of the biosketch.
      5. Indicate the extent to which, if any, generative AI technology was used and how it was used to develop your proposal.
  2. Check Application Progress: Click the Check Application Progress button to check for any missing required information or files. All missing required information will be listed at the top of the screen and must be corrected before the application can be submitted.
  3. Submit Application: When the LOI application is complete, please click on the Submit Application button to submit to the foundation. Please note that you will not be able to submit an application if the deadline has passed.

LOI Approval:

Notification of the status of the LOI will be sent by March 31, 2026.

A submitted LOI will appear in the Submitted queue of the Applications in Progress table on your SAM home page. If the LOI is approved, its status changes to In Progress. Click on the record to gain access to the full proposal application.

Stage 2 – Full Proposal:

  1. Proposal Tab:
    1. Applicant Details: Complete all required fields for the applicant/PI, including academic rank, position/title and ORCID iD. This information should be completed in the applicant’s profile. The applicant may use the Edit Profile button to update their information as needed.

      IMPORTANT NOTE: The institution in the full proposal application should reflect the applicant’s host institution — this must be changed before submission in the applicant’s SAM profile by contacting [email protected].

    2. Academic Degrees: Add/modify degrees (required).
    3. Application Details:
      1. Title: The title of the full proposal application will be the same as in the LOI proposal.
      2. Enter the start and end dates. These dates will automatically populate in the budget. The five-year award must begin no later than September 1, 2027. Appointments must begin on the first of the month.
    4. Proposal: Proposal attachments that were included in the LOI are now available in the Full Proposal application.
      1. Enter name of host institution.
      2. Host Institution Letter of Support (must use provided template): Must be co-signed by the department chair and dean at the host institution and must describe the type of position and provide an affirmation of eligibility requirements. In particular, the letter must confirm principal investigator (PI) status for the applicant at the institution, specify that the fractional teaching load will be at or less than 50 percent time, and assure that the faculty position is not term-limited. The letter must clearly affirm that, once the applicant is awarded, the university and department will commit a clinical faculty line to the awardee.
      3. Indicate the extent to which, if any, generative AI technology was used and how it was used to develop your proposal.
    5. Indicate whether the PI or any project personnel listed on the application are affiliated with the Simons Foundation or the Flatiron Institute as a Visiting Scholar / Independent Contractor or Employee. Note: Simons Foundation employees who receive a W-2 (Wage and Tax Statement) from the Simons Foundation, including employees of the Flatiron Institute, may not apply as a PI to any Simons Foundation or Simons Foundation International RFAs released by the Simons Foundation. If the PI will receive funding for salary, travel, support for students, postdocs or research staff, lab equipment, computing time or other individual expenses they may not be employees of the Simons Foundation, which includes the Flatiron Institute.
  2. Contacts & Personnel Tab: Please refer to the instructions provided in SAM to designate the required institutional contacts for the host institution. Under Project Personnel, indicate all project personnel, other than the applicant PI, including postdoctoral research associates, that will receive funding from this grant.
  3. Budget Tab: Click the Edit/Modify button to add a detailed, five-year budget justification. Please refer to the RFA for funding levels and allowable expenses.
    1. In order for known project personnel to display in the Personnel column drop-down list, you must add them as Project Personnel in the Contacts & Personnel tab of the application as well as add an application role to each personnel using the “Add More Details” button. You will need to close and reopen the budget for the changes to populate. Do not select TBD in the Personnel drop-down list if the personnel are known. They must be first entered in the Project Personnel section as outlined above.
    2. Do not combine personnel on one budget line (e.g., multiple postdocs must be itemized individually).
    3. Provide justification for each budget line item entered, including all Personnel Costs requested. Please note that the budget justification should be detailed and appropriate for the funds being requested. An insufficient budget justification will result in the proposal not being considered further.
    4. Within each budget period, you have the ability to copy the budget and justification from the previous period and then make edits as needed.
  4. Check Application Progress: Click the Check Application Progress button to check for any missing required information or files. All missing required information will be listed at the top of the screen and must be corrected before the application can be submitted.
  5. Send for Sign-off & Submit: When the application is complete, please click on the ‘Send for sign-off’ button to send to your signing official for signature. The Signing Official will receive a notification when the application is ready for sign-off. The Signing Official must provide an electronic signature in the Submission tab of the proposal. When the application is signed, the Signing Official must click on the Submit Signature button which will submit the application to the foundation. A confirmation page will appear for the Signing Official once the application is successfully submitted, and the application will now appear in the Submitted tab of the Applications in Progress table. The applicant, Signing Official and Financial Officer will receive a notification when the application is signed and submitted. Please note that you will not be able to submit an application if the deadline has passed.
Apply Now
Important Dates
  • LOI Deadline (12 p.m. (noon) EST)
  • LOI Notification
  • Full Proposal Deadline:
    No later than three months prior to the award start date
  • Award Start Date:
    By September 1, 2027
Contact Info
  1. What can the award be used for?plus--large

    The award should be used primarily for work that is related to scientific software or that supports a research program or group working on scientific software development and maintenance. For example, theoretical work on methods or algorithms relevant to scientific software infrastructure would be in scope, but the funding should not be used to support other, unrelated work.

  2. Are people in existing research faculty positions eligible to apply?plus--large

    The aim of this program is to stimulate the development and maintenance of core scientific software infrastructure in academic environments through the creation of a new, long-term, faculty-level career path in response to this call. A person in an existing research faculty position or who will be promoted into one before the due date and time of the Letter of Intent (LOI) is not eligible to apply. The award only supports those who will be hired into new research positions. A person in an existing faculty position would be eligible only if they were to fill a newly created position in response to this call.

  3. Is computational physical chemistry an eligible field?plus--large

    Yes, computational physical chemistry is eligible.

  4. Is experimental physics an eligible field?plus--large

    No, currently, the program is only open to theoretical physics.

  5. What career level should the candidate be?plus--large

    There is not a career level requirement; the candidate must be able to meet the requirements outlined in the eligibility section of the RFA. Postdocs are eligible candidates.

  6. Are there any requirements for minimum teaching load?plus--large

    There is no minimum requirement in place. However, the intent is for these positions to be seen as an asset to the universities and departments by contributing teaching and computational support.

  7. In practice, how is the policy that the new position must not be term limited enforced? Is it enough for the host institution to support the role as long as supplemental funding through grants can provide the remaining 50% salary?plus--large

    The main consideration is that the proposed funding of the position in a given university should not be coming from some other grant or grants but should be university funding.

  8. Is there a limit to the number of applicants per university?plus--large

    No, there is no limit.

  9. How are grant funds awarded?plus--large

    The grant is awarded to the host institution.

2025

Keaton Burns

Dedalus: A Flexible PDE Solver for Interdisciplinary Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Keaton Burns is a principal research scientist in the Department of Mathematics at MIT. His research focuses on developing high-precision numerical methods for simulating fluid flows across a range of disciplines. He is the lead developer of the Dedalus Project, an open-source framework for solving partial differential equations (PDEs) using global spectral methods. He has applied these techniques to problems in astrophysical, geophysical, biological, and quantum fluid dynamics. His current work focuses on advancing methods for multiscale modeling and coupling complementary numerical approaches for multiphysics applications.

With support from the Scientific Software Research Faculty Award, Keaton will continue extending the Dedalus codebase to incorporate state-of-the-art numerical methods and computational architectures. Planned developments include coupling Dedalus with external solvers, integrating automatic differentiation and machine-learning interfaces, and optimizing performance for GPU-based computing. This work will be carried out in close collaboration with mathematicians and computational scientists to accelerate the translation of cutting-edge algorithms into accessible and robust scientific tools. The overarching goal is to advance scientific discovery through the development of flexible, high-performance software for solving PDEs at scale.

Benjamin Cohen-Stead

User-friendly and extensible quantum Monte Carlo related tools for solving low-energy effective models
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Benjamin Cohen-Stead is a research assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. As a theoretical condensed matter physicist, his research interests focus on developing and applying high-precision numerical methods to address problems in condensed matter physics and bridge the gap between theory and experiment. His recent research and development efforts have focused on applying quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods to study low-energy effective models of various quantum materials. This work has included the development of novel QMC methods for systems with electron-phonon interactions, enabling the simulation of larger systems with low energy phonon modes relevant to many materials. This work includes releasing the SmoQyDQMC.jl software package for performing determinant QMC (DQMC) simulations of strongly correlated models hosting Hubbard and flexibly parameterized electron-phonon interactions that result in non-trivial electronic correlations.

As a recipient of the Scientific Software Research Faculty Award from the Simons Foundation, Cohen-Stead will not only continue to maintain and grow the functionality of the SmoQyDQMC.jl, but also work on developing new software packages that provide novel functionality to the condensed matter physics research community. This works includes releasing an extension package to SmoQyDQMC.jl for performing QMC simulations of purely electron-phonon models with a computational cost that scales near-linearly with system size. This will enable investigations of larger, three-dimensional systems that DQMC simulations are unable to practically access. Additionally, working in collaboration with researchers at Oak Ridgle National Laboratory, a second planned extension package will use the DQMC algorithm as a cluster solver in dynamical cluster approximation (DCA) calculations, thereby enabling lower temperature simulations as the computational cost will scale only linearly with the inverse temperature. These new software development efforts will implement novel functionality as well-documented and user-friendly open-source tools, enabling a large community of researchers to leverage these cutting-edge numerical methods.

Derek Davis

Developing the next-generation data analysis tools for multi-messenger astronomy
University of Rhode Island

Derek Davis will be starting this fall as an assistant professor of astrophysics at the University of Rhode Island. Their research in gravitational-wave astronomy focuses on utilizing the large datasets recorded at the LIGO observatories to enhance the accuracy and precision of astrophysical analyses involving gravitational waves. As a postdoctoral scholar with the LIGO Laboratory at Caltech, they have led efforts to both characterize the LIGO detectors and curate catalogs describing the hundreds of gravitational-wave events observed to date.

As a Simons Foundation Scientific Software Research Faculty awardee, Davis will develop new data analysis software to maximize the scientific potential of the LIGO A♯ gravitational-wave detectors and lay the groundwork for the next generation of astrophysics with Cosmic Explorer. These next-generation facilities are expected to significantly increase the reach of gravitational-wave observations, allowing us to answer questions about extreme gravity and fundamental physics, chart black holes and neutron stars throughout cosmic time, and probe the dynamics of dense matter in the most extreme environments. However, the unparalleled sensitivity of these novel detectors can only be realized with significant technological strides and novel data analysis techniques. Davis plans to modernize the tools used to characterize these gravitational-wave detectors and their data in real time to improve the sensitivity of these instruments and inform the large-scale follow-up of signals by other astronomical observatories.

Rachel Kurchin

Next-generation charged DFT calculations in Julia
Carnegie Mellon University

Rachel C. Kurchin is an assistant research professor of materials science and engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. She leads the Accelerated Computation of Materials for Energy (ACME) group, whose research focuses on computational methods to advance materials for a variety of clean-energy-related applications. Kurchin is also an advocate for open science in general and open-source software in particular, serving as an editor at the Journal of Open Source Software since 2022, and she is also active in the Julia Language community, helping to lead the JuliaMolSim organization and also serving as co-chair of the local committee for JuliaCon Global 2025.

As a Scientific Software Research Fellow, Kurchin will build on the groundwork laid by the JuliaMolSim organization, continuing to help develop and support their interfaces and tools, and also making contributions to simulation codes, in particular to the Density Functional Toolkit (DFTK). The initial aim of this thrust will be to enable automatically differentiable charged calculations for the first time, which will aid in applications in uncertainty quantification (UQ), as well as open paths to a new and more efficient implementation of grand canonical density functional theory, an emerging methodology that can more accurately represent experimental conditions in simulations of materials crucial for batteries, electrocatalysis, and more.

David Roe

Mathematics Informed by Data

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

David Roe is a principal research scientist in the Department of Mathematics at MIT. He studies computational number theory and arithmetic geometry with a particular focus on p-adic fields, which are analogues of the real numbers with a different notion of distance designed to measure divisibility by a fixed prime number. Roe has used p-adic numbers to develop point counting algorithms for varieties over finite fields, to study modular forms of varying level, and to design fast algorithms for computing L-functions associated to hypergeometric motives. He has also contributed to the study of p-adic numbers themselves, from methods for tracking precision in p-adic computations, to criteria for determining which Galois groups may arise for p-adic extensions, to improved techniques for enumerating p-adic fields of small degree. The p-adic numbers also played a central role in his journey toward building computational tools for the mathematical community, which began with his work on p-adic computation in SageMath. Building on this foundation, Roe has been heavily involved in developing the L-functions and modular forms database (LMFDB), a collection of mathematical objects arising in number theory and arithmetic geometry; he is also one of the founders of researchseminars.org, a site created during the pandemic to connect mathematicians to online research seminars.

Roe’s plans for the Scientific Software Research Faculty Award center on building databases as a research tool for the mathematical community, with three main threads. First, he intends to continue work on the LMFDB, where he has been involved in creating new databases of classical modular forms, abelian varieties over finite fields, finite groups, and modular curves, as well as expanding the database of p-adic fields and improving the LMFDB’s underlying infrastructure. In the next five years he intends to continue work on these parts of the LMFDB, as well as improving the sections on lattices and hypergeometric motives and helping build new sections on K3 surfaces and Shimura curves. Second, he aims to create a new online database of Diophantine equations, with an interface allowing both for searching by equation and for browsing equations by type. Finally, Roe will work to support other areas of mathematics by contributing to mathbases.org, an index of databases across the discipline. In particular, he plans to create tutorials, documentation and templates to assist other mathematicians in creating new databases.

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Scientific Software Research Faculty Award Online Application

All applicants for this grant must use our new grants management portal, the Simons Award Manager (SAM), to submit applications.

If you are applying to the Simons Foundation for the first time, please register in SAM before selecting “Create Application.” Instructional videos about using SAM can be found here.

If you have a ProposalCentral (pC ) account, a profile was created for you in SAM using the email address associated with your pC account. Please select “Forgot Password?,” set a new password for your SAM account and then select “Create Application.”

To create a new application, click on the button below. After creating an application, navigate to the “Applications in Progress” section on your homepage to access the in-progress application.

For assistance, contact [email protected].

sam Create Application
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