51 Pegasi b Fellowship 2026 - $492,000 Postdoc

What is the 51 Pegasi b Fellowship?

The 51 Pegasi b Fellowship pays an early-career planetary astronomer up to $492,000 across three years and then largely gets out of the way. Run by the Heising-Simons Foundation, it funds theoretical, observational and experimental research in solar system science, exoplanet science and closely related areas, at a US host institution the fellow names themselves. Applications for the current cycle close on 1 October 2026 at 2pm Pacific Time, with decisions by mid-February. The name is not decoration: 51 Pegasi b, found in 1995, was the first exoplanet detected orbiting a sun-like star, and its discovery broke the assumption that other systems would resemble ours.

What makes this different from a well-paid postdoc is the money sitting underneath the salary. The grant covers salary and benefits, then adds highly flexible discretionary research funding across the three years, and that flexibility is what fellows talk about rather than the headline number. If your project turns out to need a chunk of computing time, a trip to an observatory, or a graduate student's summer, you are not writing a fresh proposal and waiting two quarters for an answer. The Foundation started the programme in 2017 with four host institutions. The 2026-27 round is its tenth year, with 28 participating institutions and a community of 74 fellows and alumni.

Two structural rules shape how you should approach the application, and both catch people out. First, you name one host institution, chosen from the 28, and you name it in the application rather than after an offer. So the department, the faculty mentor and the instruments or facilities you would use are part of what gets judged, not logistics to sort out in the spring. Talk to a prospective mentor before you write, since host institutions publish contacts specifically for questions about collaborations, mentoring and resources. Second, US citizenship is not required, but the Foundation is clear that all visa and work permit paperwork is the responsibility of the fellow and the host institution. If you need sponsorship, that is a conversation to have with your chosen department early rather than a formality afterwards.

Eligibility turns on when your doctorate lands. Each cycle publishes an explicit window of acceptable PhD award dates, and the previous round ran from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2026, so expect the current one to sit about a year later and confirm it in the Foundation's own guidelines before you commit weeks to a proposal. The application itself is compact, an online form plus two letters of recommendation, which means each letter carries unusual weight: ask in August, hand your referees the proposal, and check both are in well before a cut-off that is a time of day rather than just a date. The class is small, single figures in a recent round, so treat the proposal as the entire argument. What happens after is unusually well thought through for a fixed-term award: fellows can apply for a fourth year, or, if they land a faculty or permanent staff post in astronomy, for a grant equivalent to one year of funding to carry the work across the move. For other funded research years worth applying to in the same season, the Harvard Academy Scholars Program guide covers a two-year social science postdoc closing in September, and the Fulbright Scholar Award guide a route for UK academics into US institutions. Full criteria and the application portal sit on the Heising-Simons Foundation programme page.