NASA just named the 2026 class of the NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP). It includes 24 outstanding astrophysics researchers who will advance NASA’s pursuit of understanding how the universe works, how it evolved over time, and whether we’re alone in it. This highly competitive program received more than 650 applications for this year’s class, representing an oversubscription rate of 27 to 1.

Each fellow is awarded up to three years of support at a U.S. institution to pursue independent astrophysics research. These fellows are divided into three sub-categories based on their work: Einstein Fellows, who will investigate how the universe functions; Hubble Fellows, who will seek to understand how the universe evolved; and Sagan Fellows, who will try to answer the question, “Are we alone?”