Sandler Fellows in the News:
- Nicole DelRosso and Bill Jia win NIH Director's Early Independence Awards (October 10, 2025). Click here to read the article.
- Chancellor Sam Hawgood recognizes Margaux Pinney as one of UCSF's emerging leaders (December 9, 2024). Click here to read the article.
- Vijay Ramani named to Forbes magazine's annual '30 Under 30' list for co-inventing sci-Plex, a new technique that enables high-throughput chemical screening using single-cell RNA-sequencing as a read-out (December 10, 2019). Click here to read the article.
NIH Director's Early Independence Award Program
The NIH Director's Office initiated a prestigious new grant program in 2011, known as the Early Independence Award (EIA) Program, which is designed to support talented new Ph.D.s and M.D.s who have the intellect, scientific creativity, drive, and maturity to flourish independently without the need for traditional postdoctoral training. These are highly competitive grants, with only about 10-15 awards made per year. UCSF Sandler Fellows match the criteria and goals of the EIA Program extremely well, and we are pleased to announce that several of our Fellows have been selected for these distinguished grants. Click here for a list of all Early Independence Award recipients.
Sandler Fellow Recipients of NIH Director's Early Independence Awards:
Nicole DelRosso, 2025 recipient
Bill Jia, 2025 recipient
Katherine Susa, 2023 recipient
Margaux Pinney, 2022 recipient
Andrew Yang, 2022 recipient
Alison Gould, 2018 recipient
Isha Jain, 2018 recipient
Matthew Spitzer, 2016 recipient
Kevin Yackle, 2016 recipient
Joe Bondy-Denomy, 2015 recipient
Robert Judson, 2014 recipient
Lei (Stanley) Qi, 2013 recipient
David Weinberg, 2013 recipient
Matt Thomson, 2012 recipient
Saul Villeda, 2012 recipient
James Fraser, 2011 recipient
Sandler Fellow Recipients of NIH Director's New Innovator Awards:
Mustafa Aydogan, 2023 recipient
Vijay Ramani, 2021 recipient
Faranak Fattahi, 2019 recipient