18 UC faculty named 2026 Sloan Research fellows

Eighteen University of California faculty have been named 2026 Sloan Research fellows, a prestigious award that recognizes promising early-career scientists and scholars, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announced today (Feb. 17).

More Sloan fellows are affiliated with UC than with any other institution granted the awards this year, and UC leads all institutions in Sloan fellows across the program's 61-year history. The fellowship-winning faculty represent 6 campuses, as shown in the table below.

Fellows receive a two-year, $75,000 award, which can be used flexibly to advance their research.

Sloan fellowships were granted to 126 early-career scientists across 44 institutions in the United States and Canada this year. The fellowships are both a recognition of existing accomplishments and a stepping stone to world-changing leadership and discovery, with many fellows going on to earn Nobel Prizes (59), National Medals of Science (72), and Fields Medals in Mathematics (17).

Among the 948 UC faculty named Sloan fellows since the program's 1955 inception is UC Berkeley professor John Clarke, who won the Nobel Prize in physics last year. His win helped UC set a record for the most Nobel Prizes awarded to a single institution's faculty in any one year.

Other luminaries that are past Sloan fellows include the late UC San Diego professor Mario J. Molina (a UC Berkeley alumnus), who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for discovering the threat posed to the Earth's ozone layer by chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases; Andrea Ghez, a UCLA professor of physics and astronomy who won the Nobel Prize in physics in 2020; and UCLA mathematician Terence Tao, who won the Fields Medal in 2006 and the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics in 2014.

"The Sloan Research fellows are among the most promising early-career researchers in the U.S. and Canada, already driving meaningful progress in their respective disciplines," said Stacie Bloom, president and chief executive officer of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. "We look forward to seeing how these exceptional scholars continue to unlock new scientific advancements, redefine their fields, and foster the well-being and knowledge of all."

The awards are open to scholars holding a Ph.D. or equivalent in seven different scientific and technical fields - chemistry, computer science, Earth system science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience, and physics - with nominations made by fellow scientists. Winners are selected by independent panels of senior scholars on the basis of a candidate's research accomplishments, creativity and potential to become a scientific pathbreaker.

The 2026 UC Sloan fellows are:

UC Irvine

Herdeline Ann M. Ardoña, chemistry
Seunghyun Sim, chemistry

UC Berkeley

Ashok Ajoy, chemistry
Yuan Cao, physics
Sarah E. Chasins, computer science
Madison M. Douglas, Earth system science
Wenbin Lu, physics
Karthik Shekhar, neuroscience
John Wright, computer science

UC Davis

Isaac Kim, physics

UCLA

David V. Clewett, neuroscience
Pradip Gatkine, physics
Juliana Londoño-Vélez, economics

UC San Diego

Valentina Di Santo, Earth system science
Fleur Ferguson, chemistry
Mattia Serra, physics
Hao Zhang, computer science

UC Santa Cruz

Ashesh Chattopadhyay, Earth system science