Del Mármol, Okafor named 2026 Sloan Research Fellows

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has announced the 2026 Sloan Research Fellows, including American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology members Josefina del Mármol and C. Denise Okafor.

Sloan Research Fellows are promising early-career researchers in the U.S. and Canada whose creativity, innovation and research accomplishments mark them as the next generation of scientific leaders. Winners receive $75,000 in support of their research.

Josefina del Mármol

Josefina del Mármol is an assistant professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. Her lab studies the molecular mechanisms of sensory transduction, focusing on the sense of smell in insect disease vectors. She uses cryogenic electron microscopy, electrophysiology, calcium imaging, computational modeling and behavioral experiments to study the structure and function of insect olfactory receptors. Del Mármol is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Freeman Hrabowski scholar and a former ASBMB National Institutes of Health Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers, or MOSAIC, scholar. She received the Association for Chemoreception Sciences Polak Young Investigator Award and the Blavatnik Regional Award in Life Sciences.

C. Denise Okafor

C. Denise Okafor is an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and of chemistry at Pennsylvania State University. Her lab studies the structural mechanisms of signaling and regulation in protein complexes. She uses molecular dynamics simulations along with biochemical and structural techniques to understand how protein function is regulated. She is particularly interested in nuclear receptors because of their complex allosteric regulatory mechanisms and their potential as therapeutic targets. She received the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award, the American Association for the Advancement of Science Marion Milligan Mason Award for Women in the Chemical Sciences and the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award.