L’Oréal USA has announced the winners of its annual program that awards female postdoctoral scientists with a $60,000 grant to advance research. Candidates for the U.S. For Women in Science (FWIS) Fellowship Program are evaluated based on their intellectual merit, research potential, scientific excellence, and their commitment to supporting women and girls in science. This year’s winners are:

  • Julie Butler, whose research in neurobiology at Stanford University focuses on the brain—how it develops, how it influences behavior, and the role it plays in caregiver and infant bonds.
  • Darcy McRose, whose research in microbiology and biogeochemistry at the California Institute of Technology focuses on studying microbes to better understand nutrient cycling, carbon storage, and sustainable agricultural practices.
  • Brooke Osborne, whose research in biogeochemistry at the United States Geological Survey focuses on understanding carbon and nutrient cycling in dryland ecosystems and how they will respond to pressure from a changing climate and land-use practices.
  • Brooke Russell, physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, focuses on studying the neutrino, one of the most abundant yet mysterious particles in the universe, which may hold the key to big questions regarding the laws of nature and how the universe was born.
  • Lilia Xie, whose research in materials chemistry at the University of California Berkeley focuses on creating new materials at the atomic level to support the next-generation technologies by processing and storing information more efficiently.

L’Oréal USA will recognize the 2021 FWIS Fellows with programming over the next week in collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), National Academy of Sciences, and the Girl Scouts of Greater New York, among others. The program is in its 18th year and has recognized 90 postdoctoral female scientists and contributed more than $4.5 million in grants to the advancement of critical research in fields as diverse as neurobiology, metabolic diseases, physics and material science, integrative biology, and biomedical engineering. The program is the U.S. component of the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science International Awards, a global program created in 1998 that recognizes and rewards women scientists around the world.