Alumni Newsletter (Oct 2026)

Published on October 5, 2026

Dear Sloan Scholar Alumni,

Happy autumn, and a warm welcome to our newest Sloan Scholar graduates! The Sloan Scholar Alumni Network is now more than 2,000 strong—a diverse community of mentors, friends, collaborators, and supporters in STEM.
This summer, the alumni program staff at the Sloan Scholars Network has been processing awards for our newest group of Sloan Scholar Alumni Grantees, whom we are honored to announce in this newsletter.

We're also facilitating a new cohort of future faculty in the Academic Job Market Boot Camp. In just a few weeks, the cohort will come together in northern Virginia for a full-day in-person boot camp at the SREB Institute on Teaching and Mentoring.

Speaking of which, we have two in-person networking events coming up this month: in Portland at AISES (details to be announced) and in the DC metro area on Wednesday, 10/28, before the Institute.

If you're local to either city or you're attending AISES or the Institute, please join us! Details are below, or go ahead and 🔗 RSVP for networking event(s) here.

Best wishes for fall,

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

In this quarter’s newsletter:

  1. 🏆 Announcing the 2026 Sloan Scholar Alumni Grantees
  2. 🌅 On the Horizon: 2027 alumni grants and symposium
  3. 👨‍👨‍👧‍👦 Fall Networking Events & Conferences: AISES (Portland), SREB ITM (D.C. area), and SACNAS (Long Beach)
  4. 💵 Opportunities: Open calls, webinar series, and more
  5. 🌟 Alumni Highlights

 

Announcing the 2026 Sloan Scholar Alumni Grantees

Five photos of Sloan Scholar alumni grantees are shown with light-gold borders on a dark tealish-blue background, the signature blue of the Sloan Foundation. The grantee photos, left to right, are: Headshot of Jazmin Aguilar-Romero standing on a green lawn and smiling at the camera, wearing a maroon a blouse with traditional multicolored Mexican embroidery; Anthonia Carter wearing a dark blazer and white shirt, speaking into a microphone on a presentation stage; Raul Rodriguez Berrios in his lab, wearing safety goggles and a work coat and smiling at the camera; Ashley Flores wearing a blazer and standing with her hands behind her back before a poster presentation board; and headshot of Nicholas Rios standing outside an academic building on a sunny day in a light purple button-up shirt, smiling at the camera.

This spring brought another rigorous competition cycle for annual Sloan Scholar Alumni Grants, showcasing ambition, creativity, rigor, and talent across the application pool.

Thanks to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's generous commitment to this grant program, the Sloan Scholars Network was able to award over $130,000 to support alumni in their labs, local communities, disciplinary societies, and beyond. This includes 18 grants for conference and meeting travel, the largest-ever group of travel grantees in one year.

In our 2026 Sloan Scholar Alumni Grants announcement, learn about each of the grantees and the projects they're conducting across three award categories — research seed, career development, and conference travel grants.

Please share the announcement with your networks and join us in congratulating these colleagues on their achievement!

🔗 Read the 2026 Sloan Scholar Alumni Grants Announcement

On the Horizon

December 2026–March 2027: Apply for Sloan Scholar Alumni Grants and Awards

The application period for 2027 alumni grants and awards will open in early December. Look for the announcement and application link in our December 2026 newsletter or on the grants and awards pages of our website. We also post the announcement on LinkedIn.

Grants will once again be available for research startup, career development projects, and conference travel; in addition, new expansions to the program will be announced, with opportunities to support a greater breadth of career-related projects.

May–June 2027: Apply to present at the Alumni Symposium & attend the ITM

Our pre-conference alumni event at the 2027 Institute on Teaching and Mentoring will be the Alumni Symposium — a space to present your work, passion projects, or professional wisdom to fellow alumni and make new connections. Look for the call for presenters in May 2027 via email, LinkedIn, and our website. If you want to come to the Institute as an alum, this is the way to do it!

While speaker slots aren't intended to be competitive, you must apply during the application period in late spring if you want to attend. This enables us to assess event capacity and coordinate Institute registrations.

Fall Networking Events & Conferences

If you're in the Portland or D.C. area, join us for a Sloan Scholar alumni networking event this fall!

Landscape photo overlooking Portland, Oregon, at sunset, with a golden sky and hazy mountains in the background.

Portland, OR — AISES
We're still firming up the details for our Sloan community get-together at AISES, which takes place October 15, 16, and 17. If you're going or you live in the area, we would love for you to join us! 
🔗 Let us know you're interested and we'll send you the details as soon as they're confirmed.

Arlington, VA — SREB Institute on Teaching and Mentoring
 Sloan Scholars Network Reception
Wednesday, October 28, 6–8 p.m.
Surreal Global Kitchen, 2117 Crystal Dr, Arlington, VA 22202
🔗 RSVP Here

Long Beach, CA — SACNAS (Oct. 29-31)
Sloan Scholar alum and SACNAS board member Kermin Martínez-Hernández encourages fellow alumni to attend this year's annual conference! Standard registration rates are available through October 4.
🔗 Learn more and register at sacnas.org/conference

Opportunities and Resources

Funding Opportunity: MIT Solve Global Challenges
Application deadline: November 2, 2026

The MIT Solve Global Challenges are annual awards to support the development or scaling of technology-driven solutions to global needs. Baseline funding is $40,000, with additional prizes and funding available during and after the program. Proposals can be at several stages of development; see FAQ page for details.

🔗 2027 Global Climate Challenge — Focus areas relate to climate-resilient cities and infrastructure, agrifood systems, coastal ecosystem restoration, and more.
🔗 2027 Global Health Challenge — Focus areas relate to primary care access, continuity of care, noncommunicable disease management, and more.
🔗 2027 Indigenous Communities Fellowship — Focus areas relate to strengthening Indigenous sovereignty, health outcomes, education, and more.

Funding Opportunity: EPA Grants for Tribal Nonpoint Source Management
Application deadline: November 9, 2026

The U.S. EPA has opened a grant program to support eligible Tribes and intertribal consortia to implement approved Nonpoint Source (NPS) management programs developed pursuant to the Clean Water Act Section 319(b)(1). The EPA will award approximately 20 grants of up to $175,000 each.
October 23, 2026 at 11:59 pm ET — FAQ submission deadline 
November 9, 2026 at 11:59 pm ET — Application deadline
🔗 Learn more and apply at grants.gov

Speaker Series: Native Voices in STEM

The University of Arizona's long-running Native Voices in STEM hybrid speaker series returns this fall! This semester's focus is food sovereignty.
📅 October 14, 12–1 p.m. Arizona Time — Amy Juan (Tohono O'odham), San Xavier Co-Op Farm
📅 November 18, 12–1 p.m. Arizona Time — Tito Romero (Tlamanalcah, Maya, and O'odham), Flowers & Bullets
🔗 Register for Native Voices in STEM fall 2026 seminars

Article: "A SEISMIC Shift in STEM Higher Ed"

An impact piece from the Sloan Foundation details the progress of the Sloan Equity & Inclusion in STEM Introductory Courses (SEISMIC)—a collaboration to "transform STEM 'weed out' courses into authentic learning environments where students from all backgrounds can gain the knowledge and skills they need to advance in STEM."

🌟 Alumni Highlights

  • Nancy Diaz-Elsayed (UC Berkeley ’13) and Sindia M. Rivera-Jiménez (UPR Mayagüez ’11) received NSF CAREER awards.
  • Gabriela Sosa (Texas A&M ’19) started as an assistant professor of the practice in the Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management at Texas A&M University, College Station.
  • Shawna Follis (Arizona ’20) started as an assistant professor in the department of epidemiology in the Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at Indiana University, Indianapolis.
  • Ronald Heisser (Cornell ’23) accepted an assistant professorship at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and will start in summer 2027.
  • Taymee Brandon (Purdue ’26) started a postdoctoral position as an Environmental Fellow at the High Meadows Environmental Institute at Princeton University.
  • Brianna Jones (South Florida ’26) started a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of South Florida's Morsani College of Medicine.
  • Houston Claure (Cornell ’23) started as an assistant professor of emergency medicine with a courtesy appointment in the School of Systems and Information Engineering at the University of Virginia.
  • Michael Dunaway (Cornell ’20) accepted a tenure-track position as Indigenous Scholar of Geography and Environmental Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.
  • Dynisty Wright (Penn State ’23) was promoted to assistant professor of biology at Savannah State University.
  • Lauren Hagler (UIUC ’20) received the inaugural Harry F. Noller Young Investigator Award from the Center for Molecular Biology of RNA at UC Santa Cruz.
  • Zena Robert (Alaska–Fairbanks M.S. ’21) was awarded the Elouise Cobell Dissertation Writing-Year Fellowship at Montana State, where she is an SIGP doctoral scholar.
  • Daniel Oropeza (MIT ’21) was selected for the inaugural cohort of ASCENDR Leadership program from the Alliance of Hispanic Serving Research Universities. The new program is “a year-long faculty development experience designed to expand engagement with the U.S. defense enterprise.”
  • Laura Dassama (Penn State ’13) received the Infectious Diseases Early Career Award from the American Chemical Society and will receive the 2027 Walter A. Shaw Young Investigator Award in Lipid Research from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
  • Alexander Ororbia (Penn State ’18) and his colleague received a $562k NSF grant for their project, “Advancing NeuroAI through Biologically-Plausible Self-supervised Learning.”
  • Lydia Tapia (Texas A&M ’09) was elected to a four-year term as Member at Large at the Association of Computer Machinery (ACM).
  • Richard Camilli (MIT ’03) and his collaborator developed a new 3D mapping technique to guide underwater vehicles in murky conditions, prompting features in a number of science news outlets.
  • Damena Agonafer (UIUC ’18) was named one of Technical.ly's RealLIST Innovators 2026, which spotlights leading inventors and researchers who contribute to local scientific community building.
  • James Parham (UC Berkeley ’06) was quoted in a National Geographic article about the newly confirmed genetic lineage of modern turtles, to which Parham contributed the family name "Archelosauria" in 2015.

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

Contact Us

Veronica Zepeda, Malu Napuelua, and Camille Baptista
Alumni Network Staff
Sloan Scholars Network
[email protected] | LinkedIn | Website
Social Science Research Council
122 East 42nd St, 46th Fl, New York, NY 10168

 

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