The Science Philanthropy Alliance is pleased to announce the recipients of the Packard Fellows Emergency Relief Fund, a $3.3 million rapid-response initiative funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to support Packard Fellows affected by recent shifts in federal research funding.
Administered by the Alliance, the fund was created to provide short-term support for Fellows whose postdoctoral mentees faced federal funding disruptions or cancellations. Through a streamlined application and selection process, the program awarded grants of up to $75,000 (plus indirect costs) to help sustain research programs and maintain the postdoctoral workforce during a period of uncertainty in the funding landscape.
“Scientific discovery depends on people,” said France Córdova, President of the Science Philanthropy Alliance. “We are grateful for the Packard Foundation’s generosity and leadership, which ensures that talented scientists and their teams are able to continue pursuing the curiosity-driven research that advances knowledge and benefits society.”
Since 1988, the Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering have supported early-career scientists and engineers with flexible funding that gives them the freedom to take risks, explore new frontiers in their fields, and follow bold ideas wherever they lead. The Emergency Relief Fund’s operation mirrors the Fellows program’s principles of trust and autonomy. Developed by an Advisory Group that included several Fellows, the fund prioritized early- and mid-career researchers while remaining open to Fellows across career stages. Eligible applications were selected through a partially randomized process designed to minimize bias and enable support to be distributed quickly and fairly while maintaining transparency in the selection process.
“The Packard Fellows program is built on the belief that investing in outstanding early-career scientists helps strengthen the next generation of scientific leaders and leads to discoveries that benefit society for decades to come,” said JR Littlejohn, Vice President of Environment and Science at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. “This emergency fund was created to help Fellows continue pursuing bold ideas during a period of significant uncertainty.”
“This fund exemplifies the power of philanthropy to respond quickly when the research ecosystem faces unexpected challenges,” said Sue Merrilees, Senior Director of Philanthropic Advising at the Science Philanthropy Alliance. “The use of an accelerated, yet fair, process meant we distributed the awards rapidly, enabling 41 Fellows to maintain momentum in their research and keep exploring answers to novel questions.”
2026 Packard Fellows Emergency Relief Fund Award Recipients
- Briana Abrahms - University of Washington
- Roxanne Beltran - University of California, Santa Cruz
- Arpita Bose - Washington University in St. Louis
- Ritchie Chen - University of California, San Francisco
- Xiang Cheng - University of Minnesota
- Dragomir Davidovic - Georgia Institute of Technology
- Ryan Foley - University of California, Santa Cruz
- Elad Harel - Michigan State University
- Weizhe Hong - University of California, Los Angeles
- Pinshane Huang - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
- Michael Jewett - Stanford University
- Pieter Johnson - University of Colorado Boulder
- Kellie Jurado - University of Pennsylvania
- Takaki Komiyama - University of California, San Diego
- Tian Li - Purdue University
- Yuzhang Li - University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
- Jingchun Li - University of Colorado Boulder
- Bo Li - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Mengxia Liu - Yale University
- Jeffrey Markowitz - Georgia Institute of Technology
- Peter McMahon - Cornell University
- Julia Mundy - Harvard University
- Dipti Nayak - University of California, Berkeley
- David Nicewicz - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Mia Petljak - NYU Grossman School of Medicine
- Sabine Petry - Princeton University
- Santiago Ramirez - University of California, Davis
- Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz - University of California, Santa Cruz
- Tapio Schneider - California Institute of Technology
- Leslie Schoop - Princeton University
- Yun S. Song - University of California, Berkeley
- Jay Strader - Michigan State University
- Jonathan V. Sweedler - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
- Dmitri Talapin - University of Chicago
- Weixin Tang - University of Chicago
- Ashleigh Theberge - University of Washington
- Hawa Racine Thiam - Stanford University
- Francois Tissot - California Institute of Technology
- Emily Troemel - University of California, San Diego
- Da Yang - Stanford University
- Yang Yang - University of California, Santa Barbara