The PhRMA Foundation awarded 50 early-career researchers a total of more than $3.6 million in 2026 fellowships and grants focused on drug discovery, drug delivery, and translational medicine research.

Predoctoral fellowships provide $30,000 a year of stipend support for up to two years. Postdoctoral fellowships provide $60,000 a year of stipend support for up to two years. Faculty starter grants provide $100,000 of project support for one year.

2026 Awardees

Translational Medicine

Predoctoral Fellowships

• Amandip Bangar, M.Eng, University of Colorado School of Medicine
• Indrani Das, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
• Zizheng Li, MS, University of California, San Francisco
• Melanie Martinsen, Brown University
• Thalia Newman, University of Michigan
• Thu Pham, University of California, San Francisco
• Ahmad Salman Sirajee, MS, Rutgers University

Postdoctoral Fellowships 

• German Arenas, PhD, University of Colorado School of Medicine
• Jeremi Chabros, MA, MPH, MD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
• Ruida Hou, MD, PhD, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
• Sahana Kuthyar, MS, PhD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
• Mark T. Milner, PhD, University of Michigan

Drug Delivery

Predoctoral Fellowships

• Kenneth Hulugalla, MSc, University of Mississippi
• Bojing Jiang, MS, MPhil, Washington University in St. Louis
• Kijung Kwak, University of Maryland, College Park
• Shannuo Li, MS, University of Utah
• Kaitlyn Pierpont, Weill Medical College of Cornell University
• Gracelyn Richmond, MS, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
• Abe Wu, University of Washington
• Keisuke Yamada, University of Pennsylvania

Postdoctoral Fellowships 

• Xueying Ge, MS, PhD, Texas A&M University
• Anujan Ramesh, MBA, PhD, Harvard University
• Qimanguli Saiding, MS, PhD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
• Sichen Song, MS, PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Anastasia Varanko, MS, PhD, Vanderbilt University
• Lining Zheng, PhD, University of California, Berkeley

Drug Discovery

Predoctoral Fellowships

• Masuda Akther, MS, Rutgers University
• Katherine Alexander, University of Illinois, Chicago
• Kate Bowman, University of Michigan
• Yuanhuang Chen, MS, Rockefeller University
• Alfred Freeberg, University of California, Berkeley
• Hilda Jafarah, University of Pennsylvania
• Emmalyn Lecky, Harvard Medical School
• Che-Hsing Li, MD, Baylor College of Medicine
• Kan Li, MS, Rutgers University
• Shujian Lin, University of Colorado, Denver
• Yinuo Meng, Weill Medical College of Cornell University
• Mary Nantongo, MS, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
• Meredith Nix, Stanford University School of Medicine
• Damilola Olukorede, University of Michigan
• Prerna Tiwari, MS, Creighton University
• Chaithanya Vedula, Boston University
• Alice Wang, Stony Brook University
• Jessica White, MS, Weill Medical College of Cornell University
• Ziqi Yu, Weill Medical College of Cornell University

Postdoctoral Fellowships

• Julia Bleier, PhD, Weill Medical College of Cornell University
• Dakota Brockway, PhD, University of Pittsburgh
• David Nie, PhD, Yale University
• Abigail Schwarz, PhD, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Faculty Starter Grants

• Yuzhong Liu, PhD, Scripps Research Institute