Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship

2027 Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship Application Webinar

2027 Program Recorded Webinar

Program Overview Documents:

2027 AOB Postdoctoral Fellowship Letter of Intent Instructions

Letter of Intent Guidance Document

Examples of Successful Letter of Intent Proposals:

Example One - Chemical Sciences

Example Two - Chemical Instrumentation

The Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellows Award is a merit-based program.

• This program is an Open Call; institutions are not limited to the number of candidates which may apply.

The Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship in Chemical Sciences or Chemical Instrumentation Award Program supports advanced research by postdoctoral scholars within the core areas of fundamental chemistry or the development and build of chemical instrumentation; research must be innovative in method, speed or process, or represent new instrument technology. This fellowship will be a catalyst from "mentored yet independent" postdocs to outstanding, independent researchers in academic or industry/governmental labs.

The Fellowships will be in two tracks (applicants will choose one):

• Postdoctoral Fellowship in Chemical Sciences allows chemists to pursue advanced research within fundamental chemistry, such as chemical physics, chemical engineering, or the chemistry of materials. The underlying proposed research and innovation must be chemistry-focused, although the project can have applications in other fields such as biology or physics.
  
• Postdoctoral Fellowship in Chemical Instrumentation will allow researchers in chemistry to conceptualize, develop, and build instrumentation suitable to advanced research in chemistry, chemical physics, chemical engineering, and the chemistry of materials science. Instrumentation projects must be suitable to the two-year fellowship timeframe, be driven by a need in the listed chemical sciences, be innovative in method, speed or process, or represent a wholly new instrument for technological advancement in chemistry. Future potential use to the broader scientific community is a benefit.

Fellows will be appointed for two years, with possibility for third year by renewal.

• Fellows will begin in July of program year.
• The Fellowship award provides $224,000 over 2 years for salary, fringe benefits, and research expenditures; instrumentation fellowships receive an additional one-time payment of up to $200,000 for material/development costs. The Fellowship may be extended for an optional third year, with $118,000 in funding for salary, fringe and research expenditures, dependent upon review of research progress and a renewal application, which is submitted during the second year of the Fellowship.
• Grant funds are sent to the awardee's institution for distribution.

2027 Grant Expenditure

Fellows who accept an academic faculty or full-time research position at an academic US research institution will be allowed to transition their current program year funding to their new institution.

Criteria for Applicants at time of application:

• U.S. Citizen or permanent resident of the United States or its possessions, or hold Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient status; and
• Current graduate student anticipated to complete a PhD in the chemical sciences by May 1, 2027, or current postdoctoral researcher with a granted/conferred PhD in the chemical sciences with no more than 18 months of cumulative postdoctoral research experience; and
• Must pursue postdoctoral training within the core areas of fundamental chemistry, such as chemical physics, chemical engineering, or the chemistry of materials. All applications should propose research and innovations that are chemistry-focused, although the project can have applications in other fields such as biology or physics; and
• Must have identified a mentor in the chemical sciences at a qualifying US nonprofit institution with appropriate laboratory facilities to support their postdoctoral research proposal; and
• Applicant must confirm with Sponsoring Mentor that they have committed to sponsoring only said applicant in this program cycle.
• Applicants cannot be an adjunct faculty during the fellowship.

Criteria for Sponsoring Mentor at time of application:

• PhD or MD/PhD; and
• Full-time tenured or tenure track faculty with at least a 25% appointment in a department affiliated with chemistry, chemical physics, chemical engineering, or the chemistry of materials science at their institution; and
• If mentor does not possess a 25% appointment, as noted above, this eligibility requirement may be met by a co-mentor that carries a minimum 25% appointment in chemistry.
• If the co-mentor is at the same institution as the sponsoring mentor, then the Institutional Letter must specifically note that the mentor does not meet the appointment criteria, but the co-mentor does.
• If the co-mentor is at a different institution, then the applicant needs an additional Institutional Letter (instructions on pg. 11-12) addressing that they meet point 3 of the appointment criteria from the Institutional Letter requirements.
• Active investigator in the applicant’s area of research; and
• Mentors must confirm sponsorship of only one applicant per program year for consideration.

Any of the following conditions will render an applicant ineligible:

• At the LOI due date, applicants with more than 18 months of cumulative postdoctoral experience in a research lab or who are more than 3 years from their PhD, are not eligible to apply.
• Applicants who are more than 3 years from their PhD but have a documented Leave of Absence/Stop the Clock disruption from their academic careers due to military service, child-rearing, or other institutionally recognized leave of absence will be considered eligible.
• Applicants may not submit applications to both the “Chemical Sciences” and the “Chemical Instrumentation” fellowships in a single program year.
• Visa holders are not eligible to apply.
• Applicants may not have full-time faculty appointments.
• Sponsoring mentors may not support more than one applicant for program year 2027.
• If, by May 1, 2027, a potential awardee has not successfully completed his/her PhD, the award will be rescinded by the Foundation. The Foundation will accept unofficial transcripts or an official letter from the granting institution that the applicant has successfully defended and completed their PhD requirements by this deadline.

Leave of Absence/Stop-the-Clock Events:

If you have experienced any stop-the-clock, leave of absence, or work disruption events, you may be eligible to apply, even if you are beyond the above timeframe limits. Events such as childbirth or adoption, personal medical leave, caring for a sick family member, or other significant work disruptions are considered by the Foundation as "stop-the-clock" events. These events may extend your eligibility for the Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship Award. Please note that the Beckman Foundation offers a full year extension for each child that you added to your family through either birth or adoption, regardless of the length of your leave.

Qualifying leaves may have occurred during your postdoctoral training. For each leave of absence, you must submit one of the following:

• Official stop-the-clock documentation from your institution
• Official leave of absence documentation from your institution
• A signed letter from an institutional contact explaining the nature of the leave and the amount of time taken

If you would like to confirm your eligibility prior to submission, please send your documentation, as well as a short summary of the events, to the AOB Postdoc Program Administrator at [email protected].

At the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, we acknowledge, appreciate and support the fundamental roles that inclusion and diverse perspectives have in scientific progress and innovation. We seek applicants from all backgrounds in our programs and strive to ensure a fair process for selection of awardees, recognizing that excellent science is not the exclusive endeavor of one group of people, but of all. In an effort to avoid implicit and explicit bias in our review process, the Foundation will blind all information pertaining to applicants’ name, gender, ethnicity, citizenship status and institutional information from reviewers during the preliminary reviews.

Read our full statement here.

The application portal will generally be open for submissions June – September. Please check the online portal for exact deadlines each year.

Step 1: Letter of Intent

The Letter of Intent portal will generally be open for submissions in the June – September timeframe. Please check the online portal and with your Institution’s grants administration office for exact deadlines each year.

To submit a Letter of Intent:

1. Review the above eligibility and program guidelines to determine if you are eligible to apply.
2. Set up an account with our Online Grant System to see the full list of required documents and terms of the award from the "Apply Now" link on this page.
3. Complete and submit the online application.

Step 2: Full Proposal

Based on review of the submitted Letters of Intent, the Foundation will invite some applicants to submit a Full Proposal. You will be notified if you are invited to submit a Full Proposal. Full Proposals will be submitted through the same application portal as the Letter of Intent.

Incomplete applications and/or materials received after the deadline will be eliminated from the competition.

Award notifications generally are released in late-February.

Prior to the application deadline, the following documents will be required through the application portal:

1. Applicant profile including scanned copies of documentation of Citizenship/Permanent Residency
2. LOI-Proposal

• Chemical Sciences: 3 pages with figures and tables
• Chemical Instrumentation: 4 pages with figures and tables

1. References
2. Institutional letter of support from the highest signing authority of the department, unit, or school. Please note that the first four sentences must respond to the prompts shown in the instructions document.

IMPORTANT!

In an effort to avoid bias in our review process, the Foundation will hide information pertaining to applicants’ name, gender, ethnicity, citizenship status, and institutional information from all reviewers.

To assist in this process, please follow the below instructions for your LOI-proposal:

• Do not include your name, gender, gender-identifying pronouns, or institutional information in the technical pre-proposal. Applicants with identifying information in the pre-proposal will not be reviewed.
• If you include references to your own publications in the technical pre-proposal, do not use any formatting markings (asterisk, bolding, italics, etc.) to identify yourself within the list of authors.
• Do not use phrasing or sentences such as: “In my mentor’s lab we developed “special technique” that is now widely used” or “in my mentor’s lab” and then cite the reference; it is a small community, and reviewers will be able to identify the technique, lab, mentor and/or institution.
• File Naming Convention: Title the document “Proposal” when uploading. Do not include your name or the name of your institution.

Generative artificial intelligence tools, such as ChatGPT or AI, are evolving into essential software in the researcher’s toolkit. Just as graphing and statistical software aid in data analysis and presentation, AI tools can assist authors in their work. The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation supports the use of these tools as supplementary resources when used in an ethical and responsible manner. Accountability lies with the human authors, who remain responsible for the proper application of AI and the critical review and reporting of its output. All awardees and applicants are expected to comply with best practice in research and publishing ethics, take full responsibility for any errors made by an AI tool, and are expected to cooperate with questions relating to the accuracy or integrity of any part of their work, including data analyses and representation.

The Foundation has a database of Awarded Scientists that is searchable by name, award program, award year, discipline, or institution. Below is a list of AOB Postdoc Awardees for the most recent three years.

2025 Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellows

2024 Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellows

2023 Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellows

Watch videos from our recent awardees here.

Logo
AOB Postdocs if you are preparing a research poster or slideshow presentation and wish to include the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation logo and/or the AOB Postdoc Program logo, they are available for download in .png format below.

• Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation Logo - stacked/vertical orientation
• Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation Logo - horizontal orientation

Publishing

Please acknowledge the support of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation by referring to the Foundation as The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation and to the award as The Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship in Chemical Sciences OR Instrumentation. We do not have a specific award number. 

For publishers and databases that use CrossRef, the Foundation's CrossRef ID is: dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000997.

Each year the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation sponsors a symposium that highlights the work of the recipients of the Beckman consortium of programs.

The format for the Beckman Symposium is updated annually and may be offered as an in-person or virtual event, as a single gathering or as regional events. Staff at the Beckman Foundation will coordinate all arrangements and reservations for the symposium. Symposium-related travel and lodging for Awardees will be paid for by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation (for in-person events only). Specific details will be provided well in advance of each Symposium.

Click here for updated information on our Foundation's Symposium website page.

Did you know? The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation is a sustaining member of the National Postdoctoral Association. Visit the NPA Career Center, or follow on your favorite social media platforms:

• X (previously known as Twitter) & Instagram: @nationalpostdoc
• LinkedIn: /company/national-postdoctoral-association