The Simons Foundation announces 13 winners of the 2023 Independence Awards

The Simons Foundation is pleased to announce the winners of this year’s prestigious Independence Awards. The 13 fellows will receive support as they transition from mentored training to independent research positions.

Each fellow will receive up to two years of postdoctoral support with an annual stipend of US$85,000, plus an annual resources and professional development allowance of US$10,000. Upon assuming a credentialed faculty position, fellows will receive grant funding totaling $600,000 over three years.

The three Independence Prize programs are offered through the Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain (SCGB), the Simons Collaboration on Plasticity and the Aging Brain (SCPAB), and Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI).

The programs share the goal of engaging fellows in the transition to research independence. During the application period for this year’s fellowships, the programs focused on different scholarly missions and eligibility criteria.

Transition to Independence (TTI) awards offered through the SCGB and SCPAB support researchers working on important topics in neuroscience. The SCGB TTI Awards are for researchers studying large-scale circuits at single-cell resolution to understand neural coding and dynamics, while the SCPAB TTI Awards focus on the neuroscience of cognitive aging in the absence of disease. Both programs were open to individuals from gender, racial, ethnic, and other groups underrepresented in neuroscience, including individuals with disabilities and individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The SFARI Bridge to Independence (BTI) award welcomed applicants addressing the full range of autism science typically supported by SFARI, including genetics, molecular mechanisms, circuits and systems, and clinical science. The award was open to scientists working in the field of autism and those newly applying their approaches to autism research. SFARI encouraged applicants from underrepresented or historically excluded groups to apply.

Fellows from the three programs will join 57 previous awardees as part of a learning community, engaging in professional development and community-building activities. Fellows will participate in workshops, meet with an assigned external mentor, receive support from Simons Foundation scholars and staff, and attend in-person Simons Foundation investigator meetings and Independence Award retreats.

The application period for the 2024 Independence Awards will open on October 10, 2023. For more information about the awards, visit the Simons Foundation’s Independence Awards information page.

Chinyere Agbaegbo Eweka, Ph.D.
Stanford University
SCPAB TTI Fellow
Project: Circadian regulation of immune cell metabolism and its impact on cognitive flexibility in the aging brain

Ryan Ash, MD, PhD
Stanford University
PTI Safari Fellow
Project: Non-invasive focal deep brain neuromodulation using transcranial ultrasound and local EEG from the source to treat behavioral inflexibility in autism

Bianca Couto, Ph.D
Rockefeller University
SCPAB TTI Fellow
Project: A cell type-specific approach to mitochondrial profiling to understand brain aging

Marito Hayashi, Ph.D
Harvard university
PTI Safari Fellow
Project: Gut-brain communication and sensory processing in autism

Elizabeth Haynes, Ph.D
Morgridge Research Institute, University of Wisconsin-Madison
SCPAB TTI Fellow
Project: Characterization of senescent microglia and their ecosystem using multiscale imaging

Eugene Kelpit, Ph.D
Harvard university
PTI Safari Fellow
Project: Emergence of social deficits in mouse models of autism

Francesca Mastrogiuseppe, Ph.D
Champalimaud Center for the Unknown
SCGB TTI Fellow
Project: Learning and computation mechanisms in cortical neural networks

Daniel O’Shea, Ph.D
Stanford University
PTI Safari Fellow
Project: Accurate characterization of arithmetic deficit in motor perception in autistic patients through cerebellar cortical disorders

Daniel Bedrick, Ph.D
Stanford University
PTI Safari Fellow
Project: Investigating phonoscopy in autism

Greta Pintacoda, Doctor of Philosophy.
Broad Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
PTI Safari Fellow
Project: An iPSC-based platform for the discovery and functional characterization of novel master regulators of autism-associated genes in the developing brain

Lindsey Salai, Ph.D
California Institute of Technology
SCGB TTI Fellow
Project: Sensory-motor transformations in innate emotional behaviors

Minglong Zeng, Ph.D
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
PTI Safari Fellow
Project: Characterization of the molecular structure of excitatory synapses on GABAergic interneurons

Ipshita Zutshi, Ph.D
New York University School of Medicine
SCGB TTI Fellow
Project: Converting sensory signals into internal representations