Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) alumna Sarah Wellons, assistant professor of astronomy at Wesleyan University, has been named a recipient of the 2026 Cottrell Scholar Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. Wellons is one of 24 early-career scholars in chemistry, physics, and astronomy selected for this year’s honor. Each award carries a $120,000 grant.
The Cottrell Scholar Award recognizes and cultivates exceptional teacher-scholars who are acknowledged by their scientific communities for the quality and innovation of their research and academic leadership. Awardees join a multigenerational community of scholar-educators across the United States and Canada who contribute meaningful advances in both research and science education.
Cottrell Scholars are selected through a rigorous peer-review process that evaluates applicants from public and private research universities, as well as primarily undergraduate institutions, in the United States and Canada. Proposals must integrate innovative research with a strong educational component. Since the program’s launch in 1994, scholars have been selected from more than 200 institutions across the U.S. and Canada. This year’s cohort represents 23 institutions in 14 states and Canada.
A theoretical astrophysicist, Wellons uses numerical simulations to study how galaxies form and evolve. Her research explores the physical processes that drive galaxy formation, from the large-scale gravitational collapse of dark matter structures to the birth of stars from cool, dense gas, as well as the influence of supermassive black holes. She is particularly interested in the most massive galaxies that cease forming stars and become “red and dead,” along with galaxies that formed during the earliest epochs of the universe.Wellons’ funded proposal is entitled: “An Ounce of Preventative Feedback, a Pound of CURE: Modeling the Physics of Supermassive Black Holes in Milky-Way-Mass Galaxies.”
“I have looked up to many current and former Cottrell Scholars throughout my early career, so it’s a great honor to be included among the 2026 cohort,” Wellons says. “This award will support both my teaching and scholarship at Wesleyan, from the work that my students and I do to understand the relationship between galaxies and supermassive black holes, to the development of courses designed to introduce students to the process of research and develop their numerical skills in the age of AI.”
Wellons earned her bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and her PhD from Harvard University in 2017. She did her postdoctoral research at Northwestern University, first as a CIERA fellow and later as an National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow in the group of CIERA member Claude-André Faucher-Giguère. She joined the faculty at Wesleyan in 2022.