NSF PRFB Recipients, Award History, and Amounts

This guide is for: Biology PhD candidates, recent doctorates, sponsoring scientists, and postdoc offices who want the actual NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology recipient list, how cohort sizes have changed, where fellows went, and what the rewritten 2026 solicitation changes for the next round.

Last updated: October 12, 2026

Full answer: The latest PRFB cohort in NSF records is 47 fellows dated 2025, down from 141 in 2021, according to a Grantsights pull of the NSF Awards API on October 12, 2026. No PRFB awards dated 2026 appear yet. Most 2025 fellows show $270,000 obligated. The new solicitation, NSF 26-504, pays $220,000 over 24 months, estimates 75 awards, narrows the program to AI and biology, and set its first deadline on September 29, 2026.

Next route: Compare the NSF MSPRF guide and the NIH F31 and F32 fellowship guide, read the NSF GRFP winner history for the graduate-stage list, and search nearby biology funding with the free grants search.

NSF PRFB Recipients and Award History: The Latest Cohort and New Rules

Data note: Grantsights pulled the NSF Awards API on October 12, 2026 three ways for award dates January 1, 2019 through October 12, 2026: the abstract phrase "Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology," the keyword PRFB, and the fund program name "Biology Postdoctoral Research." After removing duplicates, conferences, and workshops, 646 fellowship records remained. Years use the initial award date. "Obligated" is fundsObligatedAmt, the amount NSF had committed to a record on the pull date. The fellow is the awardee, so hosts come from the place-of-performance field. Older PRFB records use varied titles, so counts for 2019 to 2022 may miss a few records. Each raw pull is kept as a JSON file for checking.

According to the NSF PRFB program page, the program now supports postdoctoral fellowships that train early-career scientists to apply AI to biological research. According to the NSF 26-504 solicitation, published February 5, 2026, the three earlier competitive areas were replaced by a single focus: the intersection of artificial intelligence and biological sciences to strengthen and safeguard biotechnology innovations.

Grantsights analysis of 646 award records shows the PRFB shrinking for four straight years before the rewrite: 141 fellows dated 2021, 108 in 2022, 83 in 2023, 71 in 2024, and 47 in 2025. No 2026-dated awards appear, which fits the solicitation calendar: the earlier solicitation, NSF 24-593, listed one deadline, November 18, 2024, and NSF 26-504's first deadline was September 29, 2026.

That gap has a practical meaning. The next fellows NSF names will come from the September 29, 2026 competition, under rules that differ sharply from those that produced every cohort on this page.

PRFB Awards By Year, 2019 To 2025

NSF's PRFB cohort fell 67% from 141 fellows dated 2021 to 47 dated 2025, according to the October 12, 2026 Grantsights pull of NSF award records.

The amounts move with the fellowship terms. Records from 2019 to 2022 cluster at $138,000 or $207,000, 2023 and 2024 records at $240,000, and 2025 records at $270,000. Grantsights compared the 2025 records with the archived NSF 24-593 solicitation: according to NSF, that solicitation set the fellowship at $90,000 a year (a $70,000 stipend plus a $20,000 allowance) for 36 months, which matches the 2025 figure.

Per-fellow amounts rose while headcount fell, so total obligations dropped less steeply than the count. Total obligated money fell from $24.56M on 2020 records to $12.25M on 2025 records, about half.

47 Fellows In The 2025 PRFB Cohort

The 2025 cohort is the most recent group in NSF records. Names, hosts, and award numbers come from public NSF award records.

Of the 47 records, 39 show $270,000 obligated and 6 show $279,000. The 6 at $279,000 are all dated July 2, 2025 and carry the Plant Genome Research program element, the plant-genome track NSF funded through its Division of Integrative Organismal Systems. Two records show far less, $50,000 and $0. NSF records don't explain why a fellowship's obligation drops, so treat those two as unexplained rather than as a pattern.

Hosts are broader than research universities. The 2025 list includes the American Museum of Natural History, the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a U.S. Geological Survey science center, and two hosts abroad.

5 Host Patterns Across 450 Recent PRFB Records

From 2021 through 2025, 450 PRFB fellows worked at hosts in 45 states plus the District of Columbia and abroad, and California alone hosted 93 of them, about 21%, according to the October 12, 2026 pull.

Five patterns come out of those tables. California's share stands out even more in 2025, with 12 of 47 fellows. No single host dominates: UC Berkeley's 18 fellows across five years is about 4% of the total. Foreign hosts are common enough to plan around, at 20 fellows in five years, with the University of British Columbia alone hosting 7. Field stations, museums, and federal labs appear every year. And because the solicitation requires hosts that broaden the fellow's training, staying in the PhD lab isn't an option that shows up in these records.

Berkeley appears under two spellings in NSF records; Grantsights combined them for the counts above.

How The Program Element Mix Changed, 2019 To 2025

PRFB records carry program element codes that track the competitive area, and the codes show the program narrowing to two tracks by 2025, based on the October 12, 2026 pull.

Counts use the first program element on each record. Records can carry several codes, and NSF's coding changed over the period, so read this as a direction rather than an exact split by competitive area. The clearest signal is that no 2025 record leads with the Broadening Participation code, which had 10 to 24 records a year from 2021 to 2024.

The managing unit changed as well. Through 2022, most PRFB records listed the Division of Biological Infrastructure. From 2023 on, most list "Infrastructure, Institutes, & Centers" within the Biological Sciences directorate.

What NSF Award Search Doesn't Tell You About PRFB

NSF Award Search shows 47 fellows in the 2025 cohort, but 4 questions applicants care about can't be answered from those records.

The most important limit is that none of these 646 records came from the current rules. Every fellow listed here won under an earlier solicitation, with different research areas, a different length, and a different amount. A common mistake would be to model a 2027 proposal on a 2023 winner's topic when the program's focus has changed.

The second limit is the denominator. NSF award records list only funded fellows. Without proposal counts, there's no PRFB success rate in this data, and the 75-award estimate in NSF 26-504 is a plan subject to funds, not a count.

Old Rules Versus NSF 26-504: 6 Changes

NSF 26-504 changes at least 6 terms compared with NSF 24-593, the solicitation behind the 2025 cohort, according to both documents checked October 12, 2026.

Specifically, a fellow under the new rules receives $20,000 more a year but $50,000 less in total, because the fellowship is a year shorter. That trade favors applicants who want a faster path to a faculty or industry job and hurts those who wanted three funded years in one lab.

Eligibility under NSF 26-504 also matters. According to NSF, applicants must be U.S. citizens, nationals, or permanent residents at submission. They can't have worked more than 15 full-time months in positions that require a doctorate before the deadline, and they're limited to two PRFB submissions in total, regardless of outcome. Fellows must start between June 1 of the year after the deadline and September 1 of the year after that, a 15-month window.

Apply, Wait, Or Skip For The September 2027 Round

The next PRFB deadline is September 28, 2027, about 11.5 months after this pull, so the decision now is whether the project fits the new focus at all.

The red flag is a biology project with AI added as a single analysis step. NSF 26-504 asks candidates to develop expertise in both areas through additional training, so a proposal that uses an off-the-shelf model without training goals reads as a poor fit.

For biomedical projects outside NSF's scope, the NIH F31 and F32 fellowship guide and the NIH K99/R00 guide cover the NIH routes. The NIH F32 also requires U.S. citizenship or permanent residency, so it isn't a workaround for that rule. For agricultural biology, the NIFA AFRI winner history shows how USDA's competitive grants are distributed.

3 Takeaways From 646 PRFB Records

According to NSF award records pulled October 12, 2026, the PRFB funded 646 fellows across award years 2019 to 2025, and the 2025 cohort of 47 was the smallest.

First, the program shrank before it was rewritten. Four straight years of smaller cohorts preceded the move to a single AI focus, so the 75-award estimate in NSF 26-504 would be a sharp rebound if NSF funds it.

Second, past winners are a weak template for 2027. The research areas, length, and dollar amount have all changed, and no fellow in the public record has yet won under the new rules.

Third, the host pattern probably still holds. The new solicitation keeps the requirement to pick sponsors and institutions that broaden training, and the broad mix of universities, museums, and field stations in past cohorts reflects that rule. Expect the first NSF 26-504 cohort to appear in NSF records in spring 2027, based on the solicitation's statement that awards are made in the spring after the deadline.

Sources

• NSF PRFB program page - nsf.gov
• NSF 26-504 solicitation - nsf.gov
• NSF 24-593 solicitation (archived) - nsf.gov
• NSF Awards API, pulled October 12, 2026 - api.nsf.gov
• NSF Award Search - nsf.gov

Related Guides

• NSF MSPRF guide
• NSF astronomy and astrophysics postdoctoral fellowship guide
• NSF GRFP winner history
• NIH F31 and F32 fellowship guide
• NIH K99/R00 guide
• NIFA AFRI winner history