Call for Nominations: 2026 Distinguished Service Award

October 2, 2025

The National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) Distinguished Service Award (DSA) represents appreciation for an individual who has demonstrated either a profound, sustained, or leadership contribution to improving the postdoctoral experience.

This esteemed award recognizes an individual who has contributed to improving the postdoctoral experience through:

• Pioneering efforts to improve postdoctoral policies, benefits, and programs either within institutional or public policy.
• Influencing sustained leadership in national systemic and/or local change for the improvement of the postdoctoral experience.
• Advocating and raising awareness of significant and important issues that have significantly altered the postdoctoral scholar landscape.
• Contributing to professional development, career development, and resource development for postdoctoral scholars.
• Demonstrating a commitment to valuing diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Creating agency and opportunity for postdoctoral research and advancement into academic and non-academic careers.
• Innovating in ways not captured above to improve the lives of postdocs in their work, personal lives, or their transitions from postdocs into the next career steps.

Nomination Process

Please provide the following:

1. Cover sheet with name, title, department, mailing address, email address, and telephone number of both nominator and nominee.
2. Brief description of the nominee (250-word limit).
3. Letter(s) of nomination/support for the nominee.
4. Up to three (3) supporting documents (for example, publications or websites).

Submit the nomination package electronically by emailing it in one PDF-formatted file to contact@nationalpostdoc.org.

The 2026 DSA will receive public recognition, an honorarium of $500, complimentary registration to the 2026 Annual Conference, and a travel stipend (if applicable). The official selection committee will be responsible for reviewing nominations and making a recommendation to the NPA Board of Directors, which will provide final approval for the selection. The award will be presented at the 2026 NPA Annual Conference, March 13-14, 2026, in San Francisco, CA.

Deadline for nominations: Friday, November 14, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. ET.

Past recipients*

2025: Christine Holmes, MBA, director for postdoctoral studies at Cornell University

2024: Karen Peterson, Ph.D., director, Office of Scientific Career Development, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

2023: Lisa Kozlowski, Ph.D., associate dean for student and postdoctoral affairs, Thomas Jefferson University

2022: Geoff Davis, Ph.D., staff data scientist, applied science group, Google Research

2021: Julie Tetzlaff, Ph.D., associate professor, Medical College of Wisconsin

2020: Lisa Schwiebert, Ph.D., professor of cell, developmental and integrative biology and senior associate dean for graduate and postdoctoral affairs at the University of Alabama at Birmingham

2019: Mary Anne With, manager, postdoctoral program, Los Alamos National Laboratory

2018: Sam Castañeda, founding director, Visiting Scholar and Postdoc Affairs, University of California, Berkeley

2017: Postdoc Executive Committee (PEC), Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS)

2016: Nancy Schwartz, Ph.D., dean, postdoctoral affairs and co-director, Office of Graduate Affairs, University of Chicago

2015: Center for Cancer Training (CCT), National Cancer Institute (NCI)

2014: Shirley M. Tilghman, Ph.D., president emerita and professor, molecular biology at Princeton University

2013: Burroughs Wellcome Fund

2012: Philip Clifford, Ph.D., associate dean, Medical College of Wisconsin

2011: Science Careers and The Gladstone Institutes

2010: Trevor Penning, Ph.D., director, Center for Excellence in Environmental Toxicology (CEET), University of Pennsylvania

2009: The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

2008: Shirley Malcom, Ph.D., director, Education and Human Resources Programs, American Association for the Advancement of Science

2007: Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology

2006: Laurel L. Haak, Ph.D., science director, Discovery Logics

2005: National Academies' Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy

2004: Ruth Kirschstein, M.D., senior advisor to the director, National Institutes of Health

*Title at the time the award was given