ROCKVILLE, MD – The Biophysical Society is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2026 Society Awards. These awards are very competitive in nature and are intended to recognize Society members for excellence in biophysics. The winners will be honored at the Society’s 70th Annual Meeting, being held in San Francisco, California from February 21-25, 2026.

The 2026 Agnes Pockels Award in Lipids and Membrane Biophysics is given to Sarah Veatch, University of Michigan, USA, for foundational scientific research understanding the miscibility phase transition and associated critical phenomena in membranes and for the rigorous application of these biophysical concepts to cellular processes.

The 2026 Anatrace Membrane Protein Award is given to Yifan Cheng, University of California San Francisco, USA and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA, for broad and impactful contributions to the field of membrane protein structural biology, and for structural work delineating the gating mechanisms of TRP channels.

The 2026 BPS Award in the Biophysics of Health & Disease is given to Wonhwa Cho, University of Illinois Chicago, USA, for mechanistic elucidation of lipid-protein interactions foundational to lipid-targeted drug discovery.

The 2026 Michael and Kate Bárány Award is given to Elizabeth Hinde, School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Australia, for the creative application of physical principles to biological systems, particularly in the development of spatiotemporal correlation spectroscopy and fluorescence lifetime imaging techniques to investigate chromatin dynamics.

The 2026 Michael and Kate Bárány Award is given to Jorge Alegre-Cebollada, Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC), Spain, for pioneering the study of protein mechanics in living systems, revealing how mechanical forces govern protein function and contribute to human disease.

The 2026 Carolyn Cohen Innovation Award is given to Jie Xiao, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, USA, for her pioneering work in developing single-molecule imaging and analysis approaches to investigate the molecular and cellular mechanisms of bacterial cell division and transcription.

The 2026 Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award is given to Hawa Racine Thiam, Stanford University, USA, for being a trailblazer of subcellular biophysics and unveiling new paradigms of biophysical immunology through her dynamic measurements of physical forces on organelles in real time.

The 2026 BPS Early Independent Career Award is given to Erdinc Sezgin, SciLifeLab, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, for combining chemistry, physics, biology and computer science to gain fundamental and translational insights into how the biophysics of cells affect health and disease.

The 2026 Founders Award is given to Ken A. Dill, Stony Brook University, USA, for his work on the protein folding problem and the development of statistical mechanical theories and foundational principles in biophysics.

The 2026 Ignacio Tinoco Award is given to A. Joshua Wand, Texas A&M University, USA, for pioneering contributions to understanding the structural and mechanistic bases of biomolecular function.

The 2026 Kazuhiko Kinosita Award in Single-Molecule Biophysics is given to Cornelis (Cees) Dekker, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, for groundbreaking contributions to the field of nanobiology and single-molecule biophysics, from nanopores to SMC molecular motors.

The 2026 Klaus Schulten and Zaida Luthey-Schulten Computational Biophysics Lecture Award is given to Charles L. Brooks III, University of Michigan, USA, for his pioneering work in protein folding, free energy methods and service to the field of biophysics.

The 2026 Outstanding Doctoral Research in Biophysics Award is given to Yiechang Lin, Australian National University, Australia, for advancing our understanding of how lipid-protein interactions affect function.

The 2026 Outstanding Doctoral Research in Biophysics Award is given to Kai Sheng, Scripps Research, USA, for pioneering new approaches to elucidate the mechanism of bacterial ribosome assembly and for constructing a comprehensive structural map for the large subunit assembly.

The 2026 PUI Faculty Award is given to Ashley R. Carter, Amherst College, USA, for her remarkable contributions to biophysics research, mentoring of undergraduate students, and leadership in guiding the next generation of scientists to advance the field of biophysics.

The 2026 Rosalba Kampman Distinguished Service Award is given to Nuria Assa-Munt, Center for Scientific Review, National Institutes of Health (retired), USA, for her tireless efforts and exemplary leadership in setting the highest standards for NIH reviews, advancing biophysics research, and training the next generation of scientists.

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The Biophysical Society, founded in 1958, is a professional, scientific society established to lead an innovative global community working at the interface of the physical and life sciences, across all levels of complexity, and to foster the dissemination of that knowledge. The Society promotes growth in this expanding field through its Annual Meeting, publications, and outreach activities. Its 6,500 members are located throughout the world, where they teach and conduct research in colleges, universities, laboratories, government agencies, and industry.