A Strong Foundation for Early Career Support
The Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) originally launched the Bridge to Independence (BTI) Award in 2015 with the goal of enriching autism science by supporting promising early-career scientists in their transition to an independent research professorship. Owing to the success of early cohorts, the BTI Award program inspired the launch of the Transition to Independence (TTI) Awards in 2020 and 2021 under the Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain (SCGB) and the Simons Collaboration on Plasticity and the Aging Brain (SCPAB). Both the SCGB and SCPAB TTI Award programs specifically supported scientists from gender, racial, ethnic and other groups underrepresented in neuroscience, including individuals with disabilities and individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Advancing Our Frontiers
In order to advance the frontiers of research in science, the Simons Foundation recognizes the need for a diversity of ideas and perspectives contributing to the scientific enterprise. To that end, in 2024, SFARI, SCGB, and SCPAB welcomed a new class of Independence Fellows, all of whom identify as scientists whose backgrounds and experiences are underrepresented in science.
The Present & Future
With the unification of SFARI, SCGB, and SCPAB as the Autism & Neuroscience division, the Independence Awards relaunched in 2024 under a new name: the Fellows-to-Faculty Award.
The Fellows-to-Faculty Award program supports talented early career scientists and their research vision as they transition into tenure-track or equivalent faculty positions. The Simons Foundation’s Autism and Neuroscience division offers the Fellows-to-Faculty Award program to identify scientists with extraordinary potential to advance to our scientific areas of interest and nurture greater diversity in our scientific community.