UCLA UCLA Newsroom |
July 19, 2021
Idan Blank and Melissa Sharpe, assistant professors of psychology in the UCLA College, were selected as 2021-22 UCLA Society of Hellman Fellows.
The UCLA Hellman Fellows Program was established by the Hellman Family Foundation to support and encourage the research of promising assistant professors who show the capacity for great distinction in their research.
Blank joined UCLA as an assistant professor of psychology in July 2019. He previously worked as a postdoctoral associate at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research. Blank specializes in cognitive psychology, and his current research centers on language comprehension and the brain.
Sharpe runs a behavioral neuroscience lab in the psychology department. Her studies investigate how different neuronal regions interact to form the basis of learning experiences and how these processes go wrong in psychopathology.
Renamed the UC San Francisco Society of Hellman Fellows, the fellowship program will continue providing UCSF assistant professors support for outstanding research at the career juncture when startup funding is often exhausted and first grants may not yet have been obtained.
“My parents, Warren and Chris Hellman, used to say that creating the Hellman Fellows program was one of the best things our family ever did,” said Frances Hellman, the Hellman Fellows Fund’s president. “The discoveries, commitment, and great potential of UCSF faculty continue to inspire us year after year,” she said. “We are thrilled to be carrying on our father’s legacy by ensuring that Hellman Fellowships can exist in perpetuity throughout the University of California system.”