Applications Open for Simons Postdoctoral Fellowships in Plant Biology

The Simons Foundation’s Life Sciences division is now accepting applications for its Simons Postdoctoral Fellowships in Plant Biology. The application deadline is December 3, 2026, at 12 p.m. (noon) EDT. 

These postdoctoral fellowships support candidates who intend to pursue a career in basic research on fundamental problems in plant biology. This program supports researchers seeking to understand the inner workings of plants at the level of the whole organism or below. We are interested in applicants with training in disciplines that can be brought to bear on plant biology, including but not limited to engineering, computational modeling, theory, chemistry, synthetic biology and physics, as well as applicants already involved in the plant sciences. 

The program is purposefully flexible to attract diverse expertise: Applicants may already be in plant biology and seek to acquire new skills from mentors working outside plant biology or may be from another field and looking to apply their expertise to plant biology. Either track can have one or two mentors. All applicants must fit into one track or the other. If there are two mentors, at least one of them should be researching plant biology.  

Applicants should have received their Ph.D. or equivalent degree no earlier than three years before the fellowship application deadline. Applicants who have not yet received their Ph.D. but will have it by the fellowship start date are eligible to apply. Both U.S. citizens and foreign applicants are invited to apply to work with postdoctoral research sponsor(s) in the U.S. Awards can only be issued to nonprofit research universities or research institutions based in the U.S.

The postdoctoral research sponsor(s) cannot be the applicant’s thesis adviser. Only one application from a postdoctoral research sponsor will be considered in any year.