The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in Chevy Chase, Maryland, has announced the 2022 cohort of Hanna H. Gray Fellows.

This year’s group includes 25 postdoctoral scientists from 17 institutions across the country who will each receive up to $1.4 million for their postdoctoral training and may continue to receive funding for as many as eight years. Launched in 2016, the Hanna H. Gray Fellows Program has committed more than $142 million to increase academic faculty diversity and currently includes 86 fellows who are encouraged to follow their curiosity and study the scientific questions that matter most—changing direction as needed—for the duration of the award.

The 2022 fellows include Halleh B. Balch (Stanford University), a physicist pioneering new technologies deployed on autonomous underwater vehicles to study oceanic microorganisms and their impact on climate and human health; Jasmin Camacho (Stowers Institute for Medical Research), who is studying wild bats and using cutting-edge metabolomics to identify and map the metabolic mechanisms that protect against the damaging effects of sugar consumption; and Aaron Joiner (University of California, Berkeley), who is studying a set of proteins that dynamically interact with organelle membranes and is currently focused on the role of the C9orf72 protein in neurodegenerative disease.

“We’re so excited to welcome these outstanding scientists into our HHMI family,” said HHMI vice president and chief scientific officer Leslie Vosshall. “Our resources and our growing community position the Hanna Gray Fellows to make scientific breakthroughs and contribute to building a healthy research culture.” 

For a complete list of the 2022 fellows, see the HHMI website.