Fred Hutch Names 12 Weintraub Award Winners Across Top U.S. Research Programs
Every year since 1999, Fred Hutch Cancer Center has asked a simple question: which graduate students in the biological sciences are doing the most original, most rigorous work? The answer comes in the form of the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award, and this year's list of 12 recipients spans a wide arc of scientific territory - from tumor metabolism to sensory reception to the mechanics of DNA replication.
The award is named for Harold "Hal" Weintraub, a molecular biologist who helped establish Fred Hutch's Basic Sciences Division. He died of brain cancer in 1995. In the decades since, the award bearing his name has recognized 361 graduate students, making it one of the most consistent honors in early-career biological sciences in the United States.
The 2026 Recipients
This year's cohort was drawn from programs at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Rockefeller University, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, University of California San Francisco, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, and University of California Berkeley.
The 12 recipients are: Keene Abbott (MIT, Biology); Gabriella Chua (Rockefeller University, Tri-Institutional PhD Program in Chemical Biology); Lifei Jiang (Princeton University, Molecular Biology); Won Jun Kim (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center / Weill Cornell-Rockefeller-Sloan Kettering Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program); Ruchita Kothari (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology); Ayush Midha (UCSF Tetrad Graduate Program); Rohith Rajasekaran (University of Wisconsin-Madison, Integrated Program in Biochemistry); Yusha Sun (University of Pennsylvania, Neuroscience Graduate Group and Medical Scientist Training Program); Andrea Terceros (Rockefeller University, David Rockefeller Graduate Program); Wendy Valencia Montoya (Harvard University, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology); Zachary Walsh (Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Integrated Program in Cellular, Molecular and Biomedical Studies); and Peter Yoon (University of California Berkeley, Molecular and Cell Biology).
What the Selection Committee Looked For
The selection committee - comprising faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students at Fred Hutch - drew from an international pool of applicants. Jihong Bai, PhD, professor in Fred Hutch's Basic Sciences Division and director of the Weintraub awards committee, chairs the process.
"These awardees stood out for their scientific originality, rigor and dedication to asking important scientific questions," Bai said. "They reflect the strength and promise of the next generation of scientific leaders."
The criteria are deliberately broad. Rather than restricting eligibility to specific disease areas or techniques, the award looks for work that addresses problems not previously tackled scientifically - studies that create new milestones rather than extending existing ones.
"Our applicants represent impactful work that has not yet been addressed scientifically," Bai said. "They are identifying new insights and creating important milestones within each of their fields."
Recognition, Then a Symposium
Award recipients will be honored at the Weintraub Symposium on May 1, 2026, at Fred Hutch in Seattle. The symposium has been a fixture of the award since its early years and serves as both a celebration and a scientific exchange - bringing together winners from different disciplines to present their work to one another and to the Fred Hutch community.
The award is supported by the Weintraub/Groudine Fellowship for Science and Human Disease, which aims to foster intellectual exchange through programs aimed specifically at graduate students. The fellowship reflects an ongoing institutional commitment to supporting scientists at the stage where foundational discoveries most often begin.