Awards & Honors

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is proud to announce that Jennifer A. Doudna is the recipient of the 2026 Priestley Medal. This award is the highest honor bestowed by ACS, and it annually recognizes an individual for distinguished service to chemistry. Doudna receives the award for “outstanding discoveries on ribozyme function, Dicer and double-stranded RNA processing and CRISPR gene editing, and for impactful international science leadership.”

Doudna has received dozens of awards and honors,...

The UC Berkeley College of Letters & Science is pleased to announce the 2025 recipients of the inaugural L&S First-Year Pathways Course Enrichment Grants.

Now entering its third year, the L&S First-Year Pathways program has significantly expanded for 2025-26, growing from 6 clusters serving 125 students to nearly 20 clusters serving more than 230 students. L&S Pathways provides a small cohort experience for groups of 17-30 incoming freshmen who take "clusters" of three or four courses together...

The L&S Staff Achievement Awards, now in its second year, recognize and celebrate outstanding staff members in the College of Letters & Science. Awardees are selected for their exceptional commitment to the College’s shared mission of teaching, research, and public service. Each of these individuals has excelled in areas such as collaboration, goal accomplishment, inclusion & belonging, innovation, and mastery of their work.

We are deeply grateful to our 2025 recipients for their remarkable contributions to the College and to the University. Their...

UC Berkeley senior Carolyn Nguyen (’26) has been selected as a 2026–27 Winston Churchill Scholar, making her Berkeley’s first recipient in a decade. Awarded by the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States, the Churchill Scholarship supports a year of master’s study at Churchill College, Cambridge, for students pursuing advanced work in science, mathematics, and engineering.

A double major in Molecular and Cell Biology and Business Administration (Haas), Nguyen is passionate about advancing next-generation therapeutics. At Berkeley, she conducts research in Dr. James Nuñez’s...