FeMS+ Empowerment Award Applications for 2026 Q1 Are Closed

Information for applicants for 2026 Q1

FeMS+ Empowerment awards of up to $300 USD are available to FeMS+ members working or studying within the field of mass spectrometry. These awards will be offered on a quarterly basis with a fixed maximum total amount available. In this round, Q1 2026, will be allocated for events/training taking place from January 1st to March 31st, the maximum pool of funding available is $1500 USD. Members are encouraged to apply for these funds to cover or offset a range of job- or study-related activities, including (but not limited to): conference or course registration, childcare costs, purchasing of lab/office supplies or equipment, and publication fees. The awarded money must be spent on the intended activity on or before 31st of March 2026.

Please note that the applications for events that do not fall within the specific dates indicated in the current call will NOT be evaluated. If you have applied in this call for an event that takes place outside the Q1 empowerment award dates, and your event will take place in the Q2 2026 or later, please apply again. The applicants are responsible themselves to provide the FeMS+ awards committee with the specific dates of the events taking place. In the case that the FeMS+ award committee finds that the applicant has applied for an event that doesn’t take place in the specific quarter, FeMS+ awards committee reserves the right to retrieve the award and offer it to the applicant that was next in line.

As part of the application process, applicants will be asked to:

1) Justify the amount of money requested (including proof of cost, where possible).

2) Describe the anticipated impact that the Empowerment award will have on the applicant.

3) Provide evidence of any other monetary support (or lack of support) available for their intended activity.

4) Provide proof of use of the grant for intended purposes.

5) Provide a short statement on how the grant has benefited them.

6) Consent to using the above statement in FeMS+ promotional material/social media networks (e.g. Twitter (X), LinkedIn, FeMS+ website)

These FeMS+ Empowerment awards will be offered for one quarter, and five awards will be allocated. Next award deadline will be in January 2026, for Q2 for the events taking place between April 1st to June 30th 2026. FeMS+ members have unlimited attempts to apply; however, this award can only be received once per member. Award recipients will be required to provide a headshot to the FeMS+ awards for inclusion in FeMS+ newsletters and social media.

Key details and terms for the FeMS+ Empowerment awards are provided below.

Key dates for Q1 2026 round

• Open 31st of October (00:00 UTC+12), close 13th of November 2025 (23:59 UTC-12)
• Expected announcement: Early December 2025.
  

Application criteria

• A description of the intended use of the FeMS+ Empowerment award (max 150 words)
• A description of the anticipated impact of being awarded a FeMS+ Empowerment award (max 150 words)
• Evidence of the cost and date of the intended activity. 
• Evidence of any additional financial support (or lack of financial support) for the intended activity. A letter from a supervisor or manager stating any available funds (or lack of available funds) is preferred.
• Proof that you are a real, live, human being working or studying in the field of mass spectrometry. A link to a publicly available university or company (or similar) website profile is preferred. Links to publicly available social media profiles may also be considered as evidence in some circumstances.

Assessment process

• Applications will be assessed with the following in mind:
  • Enabling demonstrable positive impact on the careers of FeMS+ members
  • Maximising the total number of awards able to be given in a round
  • Ensuring equity amongst underrepresented groups within science
  • Ensuring equal global representation
• Applications for FeMS+ Empowerment awards will be assessed by the FeMS+ awards committee. Current committee members include:

• Monique Opperman, North-West University, South Africa (co-chair)
• Yeşim Er Öztaş, Hacettepe University, Turkey (co-chair)
• Maia Kelly, in transition, Australia (co-chair)
• Silvia Radenkovic, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA (co-chair)
• Stacy Malaker, Yale University, USA
• Yasaman Jami, Pfizer, Massachusetts, USA
• Chelsea Lin, University of Washington, USA
• Annalaura Mastrangelo, Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares, Spain
• Lucie Davidová, Uppsala University, Sweden
• Ester Cheow, MSD International GmbH, Singapore
• Dayane Bordin, University of Technology Sydney, UTS, Sydney, Australia
• Mohammed Alhigaylan, University of Toronto / Hannes Rost lab, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Zhaojing Meng, Meso Scale Diagnostics, Maryland, USA
• Rosangela Devilla, CSIRO, Canberra, Australia
• Nivedita Bhattacharya, MassTech, India
• Shweta Chhajed, ThermoFisher Scientific, USA

• In the event that a FeMS+ Awards Committee member applies for the award, they will recuse themselves from the assessment of applications in that round.
• When a large number of applications are received in a given round, other FeMS+ committee members & members of our scientific and industry advisory boards may be asked to assess applications. Current FeMS+ committee members and both scientific and industry advisory board members can be viewed on the FeMS+ website. 

Award terms

• FeMS+ members have unlimited attempts to apply for a FeMS+ Empowerment Award in a year (maximum one per quarter) but can only receive the award once.
• The awarded money must be spent on or before the end of the quarter (i.e. 31st March 2026 in this round).
• Successful Q1 2026 Empowerment grant awardees will be required to provide a photo for use in FeMS+ social media & newsletter (the award will not be paid out until this is received).
• Where the award is used to fund conference participation, FeMS+ must be acknowledged in any oral or poster presentations.
• Awardees are encouraged to share an update of their funded activity on their own social media profiles acknowledging FeMS+.
• Awardee contact details may be forwarded to our sponsors for their own promotional purposes. You can opt out of this during the application process.
• Awardee must provide a short statement on how the award has benefited them which could be used for FeMS+ promotional material and on FeMS+ social media platforms.
• Awardee must provide proof of use of the grant no later than one month after the close of the quarter (eg. 30th of April, 2026 in this round)

Payment of award

The method of payment of the award to successful recipients will be done by Money Transfer (PayPal only). Applicants should check with PayPal in their country to see if they can receive money transfers before applying. Other payment methods will only be considered in exceptional circumstances and will likely incur a reduction in the total amount able to be awarded to the recipient (e.g. any associated transfer fees).

FeMS+ Empowerment Awards – Previous Rounds

Congratulations to the FeMS+ Empowerment Awards recipients from previous rounds:

2025 Q4

2025 Q3

Ambrin Farizah Babu – University of Turku, Finland
Courtney J. Christopher – University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Emily Byrd – University of Leeds, UK
Krutika Manoj Padhye – Institute of Chemical Technology, India
Sandee Michelle Oster – University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

2025 Q2

• Estefania Nova -Lamperti- Universidad de Concepción, Chile
• Punita Aggarwal – Institute for Biomedicine and Glycomics, Australia
• Jamaine Villacorta – University of the Philippines Diliman, Phillipines
• Caroline Pollard – University of Dundee and National Physical Laboratory, UK
• Betzabeth Pereira – MERLN Institute, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands

2025 Q1

• Gabriela Cristina Chango Lescano – Universidad de Salamanca, Spain
• Pallikonda A. D. B. V. Wickramasinghe – Kansas State University, Kansas, USA
• Rachel Jackson – Griffith University, Australia
• Josephine Ouma – Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture, Kenya
• Anjali Kashwal – PGIMER Chandigarh, India

2024 Q4

• Erdenetsetseg Nokhoijav– Employed University of Debrecen, Hungary
• FAITH Johnson – ECOLAB, Kenya
• Zhi Lindsey Lin – UCSF, USA
• Marta Relvas Santos – Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto, Research Center, Portugal
• Gabriella Gellen – CY Cergy Paris University, France

2024 Q3

• Despoina Svingou, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
• Paraskevi Karousi, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
• Colleen Maxwell, University of Leicester, England
• Susana Alejandra Palma Duran, Research Center for Food and Development A.C. (CIAD) Mexico
• Kemi Osho, University of Nevada Reno, Chemistry Department, USA

2024 Q1-Q2

• Hannah Heath, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Abisola Regina Sholeye, North-West University. PotchefstroomCampus
• Carien van der Berg, North West University South Africa, Centre for Human Metabolomics
• Hannah Brown, Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine
• Jasmine Reese, University of Oxford
• Sally Burke, University of California San Diego
• Jennifer Hinman, Michigan State University
• Silke Merchel, University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, Isotope Physics
• Durgalakshmi Sivasankar, Northeastern University
• Dayanne Bordin, University of Technology Sydney
• Dipali Digambarrao Kale, ISAS, Dortmund

2023 Q4

• Erika Dorado, Imperial College London, UK
• Purva Kulkarni, Radbound University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
• Larissa Diniz, University of São Paulo, Brazil
• Isabeau Vermeulen, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands
• Perla Itzel Alvarado Luis, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) – National Institute of Genome Medicine in Mexico City (INMEGEN)

2023 Q3

• Bhavneet Kaur, Institute of Medical Education and Research, India
• Martina Blank, Federal Universtiy of Santa Catarina, Brazil
• Eleanor Castracane, University of California San Diego, United States of America
• Xu Li, Emory University, United States of America
• Vlada Pashynska, B. Verkin Institute for Low Temperature Physics and Engineering of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine

• Dr Silvia Radrezza, Max Plank Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Germany
• Vanessa Erckes, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
• Behnaz Akbari, Boston University, USA
• Fatemeh Farshadi, Lady Davis Institute, Canada
• Dr Min Ma, University of Winsconsin, USA

2022 Q4

• Sophia Escobar Correas, CSIRO, Australia
• Kristýna Kantnerová, CU Boulder & INSTAAR, USA
• Hsien-Jung Lin, Brigham Young University, USA
• Yamilé López Hernández, Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, Mexico
• Stefania Noerman, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
• ‪Nicola Procházková, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

2022 Q3

• Julie Courraud, University of Athens, Greece
• Rashmi Kumar, Stanford University School of Medicine, USA
• Lucienne Nouchikian, Institut Pasteur, France
• Amita Puranik, Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India
• Daniela Rojas, University of Sherbrooke, Canada
• Louise Sternicki, Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery, Griffith University, Australia

2022 Q2

• Maria Emilia Dueñas, Biosciences Institute, Newcastle University, England
• María Monge, Centro de Investigaciones en Bionanociencias (CIBION) – Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Argentina
• Erika Mariana Palmieri, National Cancer Institute, USA
• Louise Paton, University of Otago Christchurch, New Zealand
• Justine Nicole Raeber, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
• Rosangela Silva Santos, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil

2022 Q1

• Lisa Hahnefeld, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
• Seren Hamsici, University of Oklahoma, USA
• Charlotte Hutchings, University of Cambridge, UK
• Aishwarya Jala, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research: Guwahati, India
• Silvia Radenkovic, Mayo Clinic, USA

2021 Q4

• Gina Barbosa, Central Mindanao University, Philippines
• Federica Fiorini, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Grenoble Alpes, France
• Erin Humphries, University of Sydney Australia
• Manasi Kamat, University of Florida, United States
• Stephanie Rankin-Turner, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, United States
• Khawla Seddiki, Université Laval, Canada