Quarterly Alumni Newsletter | June 2026

In this quarter’s newsletter:

1. Announcing the Recipients of the 2026 Sloan Scholar Alumni Awards
2. Last Call: Apply for the Academic Job Market Boot Camp by Sunday 7/5 (Deadline extended)
3. Seeking Mentors in Industry and Government
4. Network Update: More on our program's transition and new name
5. HEI Concludes its Evaluation of the Sloan Scholar Alumni Network
6. Alumni Highlights
   
   

Announcing the Recipients of the 2026 Sloan Scholar Alumni Awards

The Sloan Scholars Network is honored to announce the recipients of this year's Sloan Scholar Alumni Awards: six outstanding alumni selected by an independent panel for their contributions as researchers, educators, professionals, and/or community members.

With generous support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, these annual awards recognize the dedication, impact, and accomplishments of exemplary Sloan Scholar alumni from the Legacy, UCEM, and SIGP programs.

Please share the full announcement with your networks and join us in congratulating these outstanding community members!

Read about each of the award recipients in our full announcement.

Last Call: Apply for the Boot Camp by Sunday, July 5

Calling all Sloan Scholar alumni who're applying to faculty positions or will do so soon: Come prepare, learn, and find community alongside fellow Sloan Scholar alumni at the biennial Academic Job Market Boot Camp!

We have extended the application deadline to end-of-day Sunday, July 5!

Space is limited, so you must submit the application form to register your interest.

What happens next?

• By July 15: Sloan Network staff reaches out to all applicants in mid-July with the workshop schedule and instructions for confirming your spot in the boot camp.
• July 31: Deadline to confirm your spot in the boot camp and complete registration.
• August, September, and October: Participants attend monthly virtual boot camp workshops (mandatory). There will also be optional group sessions each month for writing time, feedback, and accountability.
• Also in August-September: Participants will work with our travel agent to book flights to and from the DC area for the October events. The Network covers airfare, hotel, meals, and Institute registration.
• October 28-29 (Wednesday-Thursday): In-person boot camp and networking events in Arlington, Virginia.
• October 29-November 1: The Institute on Teaching and Mentoring in Arlington, VA.
• We'll offer a final optional writing session in November depending on participant interest.

Find complete details about the 2026 boot camp on our website and head to the application portal to apply now!

Seeking Mentors in Industry and Government

Thank you to everyone who has expressed interest in our mentor-matching pilot!

The pilot involves 1:1 informational interviews between current Sloan Scholars and alumni, which the Sloan Scholars Network is arranging on a limited scale to inform our development of a Network-wide program. If you indicated interest at some point, we’ve recorded your response, and we’re thrilled that you want to participate!

We received particularly strong interest from alumni in academia. To diversify our pilot group, we’re seeking additional alumni volunteers who work in industry or government roles or have recent experience in those sectors.

Alumni mentors will be paired with a current scholar for a virtual 30-45 minute informational interview. Mentors will receive guidance on best practices in advance, and mentees will attend a webinar training to help them get the most out of the informational interviews. 

If you’re interested, please email the alumni program staff — Malu, Camille, and Dr. Veronica Zepeda — at [email protected].

Thank you!

Network Update: More about our recent transition

Unifying the scholar-alumni community under the Sloan Scholars Network umbrella

As of April, the scholarship and alumni program staff are under one roof, working more closely than ever to support Sloan Scholars at all stages of their educational and professional careers. 

The Sloan Scholarship Programs have moved from their longtime administrative home at NACME to operate alongside the Sloan Scholar Alumni Network (previously the SSMN) at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). Together, the scholarship programs and the alumni network have a new shared name: the Sloan Scholars Network. 

Dr. Veronica Zepeda continues as Program Director, now overseeing both the Sloan Scholarship Programs and the Sloan Scholar Alumni Network. Denise Ellis, a dedicated champion of the Sloan Scholar community during her long tenure at NACME, continues her indispensable work at the SSRC in the role of Deputy Director, Sloan Scholarship Programs. She is directly supported by Program Assistant Chace White. Malu Napuelua and Camille Baptista continue to focus primarily on programming and community building for the Sloan Scholar Alumni Network.

The Sloan Scholars Mentoring Network (SSMN) name has been retired. Mentoring will remain central to this community, under a new program name that encompasses the full range of professional-development opportunities and community experiences we aim to provide.

The alumni program staff is excited to develop a more seamless and supportive experience for the newest Sloan Scholar graduates as they transition into careers. We look forward to connecting directly with every graduate-to-be. At the same time, we continue our work to build relationships with Sloan Scholars who graduated before the alumni network was established 10 years ago. We anticipate the new Sloan Network configuration aiding these goals in a number of ways.

New email address

As a reminder, we have a new staff email address: [email protected]. Please take a moment to add the new email address to your contacts. The [email protected] address has moved on to the digital afterlife.

Website changes

Current Sloan Scholars will soon be able to connect with you and with each other on the Sloan Network website by creating approved user accounts. Update your profile to make better use of this multifaceted community site! Here's how:

1. Log in at https://sloan-scholars.ssrc.org/.
2. Click on your profile image or initials in the top-right corner.
3. Choose "My Profile" from the drop-down menu.
4. On the profile page, click "edit" next to any of the profile sections — add your social media links, alma mater, research interests, where you call home, or whatever else you use to introduce yourself.

As always, your profile on the Sloan Network website is only visible to other logged-in users, each of whom is checked and approved individually by our staff. Only accounts belonging to current Sloan Scholars, alumni, and a small number of verified administrative staff are approved.

HEI concludes its evaluation of the Sloan Scholar Alumni Network

Higher Ed Insight recently concluded its evaluation of the former Sloan Scholars Mentoring Network (SSMN) from approximately 2016-2025. We’re pleased to be able to share the executive summary with you here and in the PDF attached to this newsletter. The full evaluation report will be available on our website in the coming weeks. 

A project two years in the making, this is a formative evaluation that explores awareness, engagement, feelings of community and belonging, professional trajectories, and perceptions of the Network’s impact among hundreds of Sloan Scholar alumni. For the Sloan Foundation, the Sloan Scholars Network staff, and friends and colleagues leading community initiatives to advance equity and opportunity in STEM higher education, the evaluation provides valuable insight and research to build on.

Many of you contributed your valuable time and honest perspectives to this report in the form of survey responses, focus groups, interviews, or informal conversations with the HEI team. We are deeply grateful to each of you who participated. You’ve made an impact, and your contributions will shape how we strengthen and grow our Sloan Scholar Alumni Network in the years ahead.

Finally, we thank Dr. Tashera Gale, Dr. Valencia Clement, and their colleagues at Higher Ed Insight for their exceptional work in service of our mission. They brought sincerity, collaborative spirit, dedication, care, and thoughtfulness to every step of this research and evaluation process.

🌟 Alumni Highlights

• Ana Arellano (USF ’14) was promoted to Associate Professor of Instruction at their alma mater, the University of South Florida.
  
  
• Laura Dassama (Penn State ’13) received the 2026 Protein Science Young Investigator Award from the Protein Society. 
  
  
• We love this photo of Maria Isabel-Roldos (UGA '12) listening to elementary and middle school students present their experiments at a science fair.
  
  
• Michael Rodruck (Penn State '21) was quoted by Richmond, VA's local news in this feature article about the Keeble Observatory at Randolph-Macon College, which is creating opportunities for local public school students to use its telescope.
  
  
• Enrique Vivoni (MIT ’03) and collaborators at ASU are finding indicators about shrinking snowpacks across the West as the result of a warming climate.
• Stephanann Costello (Montana State ’24) published “C NMR as a foundation for machine learning models of polysaccharides” in Structural Dynamics, marking the first publication of her postdoc career.

If you enjoy reading these highlights, your fellow Sloan Scholars want to read about you, too! Send us a note at [email protected] or tag us in your LinkedIn posts whenever you have news.

Contact Us

Veronica Zepeda, Malu Napuelua, and Camille Baptista
Staff, Sloan Scholar Alumni Network
[email protected] | LinkedIn | Website

Social Science Research Council
300 Cadman Plaza West, 15th Fl, Brooklyn, NY 11201