The highly competitive NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP) recently named 24 new fellows to its 2025 class. The NHFP fosters excellence and leadership in astrophysics by supporting exceptionally promising and innovative early-career astrophysicists. Over 650 applicants vied for the 2025 fellowships. Each fellowship provides the awardee up to three years of support at a U.S. institution.

Once selected, fellows are named to one of three sub-categories corresponding to three broad scientific questions that NASA seeks to answer about the universe:

How does the universe work? – Einstein Fellows

How did we get here? – Hubble Fellows

Are we alone? – Sagan Fellows

“The 2025 class of the NASA Hubble Fellowship Program is comprised of outstanding NASA Astrophysics researchers,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, acting director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This class of competitively-selected fellows will inspire future generations through the products of their research, and by sharing the results of that work with the public. Their efforts will help NASA continue its worldwide leadership in space-based astrophysics research.”

The list below provides the names of the 2025 awardees, their fellowship host institutions, and their proposed research topics.

The 2025 NHFP Einstein Fellows are:

• Shi-Fan Chen, Columbia University, Galaxies, Shapes and Weak Lensing in the Effective Field Theory of Large-Scale Structure
• Nicolas Garavito Camargo, University of Maryland, College Park, Local Group Galaxies in Disequilibrium; Building New Frameworks to Constrain the Nature of Dark Matter
• Jason Hinkle, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Nuclear Transients in the Golden Era of Time-Domain Astronomy
• Itai Linial, New York University, Repeating Nuclear Transients – Probes of Supermassive Black Holes and Their Environments
• Kenzie Nimmo, Northwestern University, From Glimmering Jewels to Cosmic Ubiquity: Unraveling the Origins of FRBs
• Massimo Pascale, University of California, Los Angeles, The Universe Seen Through Strong Gravitational Lensing
• Elia Pizzati, Harvard University, The Missing Link: Connecting Black Hole Growth and Quasar Light Curves in the Young Universe
• Jillian Rastinejad, University of Maryland, College Park, Illuminating the Explosive Origins of the Heavy Elements
• Aaron Tohuvavohu, California Institute of Technology, Ultraviolet Space Telescopes for the new era of Time Domain and Multi-Messenger Astronomy

The 2025 NHFP Hubble Fellows are:

• Aliza Beverage, Carnegie Observatories, Revealing Massive Galaxies Formation Using Chemical Abundances
• Anna de Graaff, Harvard University, Early giants in context: How could galaxies in the first billion years grow so rapidly?
• Karia Dibert, California Institute of Technology, Superconducting on-chip spectrometers for high-redshift astrophysics and cosmology
• Emily Griffith, University of Colorado, Boulder, Beyond Mg and Fe: Exploring Detailed Nucleosynthetic Patterns
• Viraj Karambelkar, Columbia University, The Anthropology of Merging Stars
• Lindsey Kwok, Northwestern University, Determining the Astrophysical Origins of White-Dwarf Supernovae with JWST Infrared Spectroscopy
• Abigail Lee, University of California, Berkeley, AGB Stars in the Era of NIR Astronomy: New Probes of Cosmology and Galaxy Evolution
• Aaron Pearlman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pinpointing the Origins of Fast Radio Bursts and Tracing Baryons in the Cosmic Web
• Dominick Rowan, University of California, Berkeley, Fundamental Stellar Parameters Across the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram
• Nicholas Rui, Princeton University, A seismic atlas of the stellar merger sky
• Nadine Soliman, Institute for Advanced Study, Micro Foundations, Macro Realities: Modeling the Multi-scale Physics Shaping Planets, Stars and Galaxies
• Bingjie Wang, Princeton University, Inference at the Edge of the Universe

The 2025 NHFP Sagan Fellows are:

• Kyle Franson, University of California, Santa Cruz, Mapping the Formation, Migration, and Thermal Evolution of Giant Planets with Direct Imaging and Astrometry
• Caprice Phillips, University of California, Santa Cruz, Aging in the Cosmos: JWST Insights into the Evolution of Brown Dwarf Atmospheres and Clouds
• Keming Zhang, Institute for Advanced Study, Understanding the Origin and Abundance of Free-Floating Planets via Microlensing and Machine Learning

The class of 2025 NHFP Fellows are shown in this photo montage (left to right, top to bottom): The Einstein Fellows (seen in the blue hexagons) are: Shi-Fan Chen, Nicolas Garavito Camargo, Jason Hinkle, Itai Linial, Kenzie Nimmo, Massimo Pascale, Elia Pizzati, Jillian Rastinejad and Aaron Tohuvavohu.

The Hubble Fellows (seen in the red hexagons) are: Aliza Beverage, Anna de Graaff, Karia Dilbert, Emily Griffith, Viraj Karambelkar, Lindsey Kwok, Abigail Lee, Aaron Pearlman, Dominick Rowan, Nicholas Rui, Nadine Soliman, Bingjie Wang.

The Sagan Fellows (seen in green hexagons) are: Kyle Franson, Caprice Phillips, and Keming Zhang.

For short bios and photos, please visit the link at the end of the article.

An important part of the NHFP is the annual Symposium, which allows Fellows the opportunity to present results of their research, and to meet each other and the scientific and administrative staff who manage the program. The 2024 symposium was held at the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI) in Pasadena, California. Science topics ranged through exoplanets, gravitational waves, fast radio bursts, cosmology and more. Non-science sessions included discussions about career paths and developing mentorship skills, as well as an open mic highlighting an array of talents other than astrophysics.

The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, administers the NHFP on behalf of NASA, in collaboration with the Chandra X-ray Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California.

Short bios and photos of the 2025 NHFP Fellows can be found at:
https://www.stsci.edu/stsci-research/fellowships/nasa-hubble-fellowship-program/2025-nhfp-fellows

Related Images & Videos

2025 NHFP Fellows

The class of 2025 NHFP Fellows are shown in this photo montage.