The Stratingh Institute for Chemistry at the University of Groningen has named Kira Podolsky, Schmidt Science Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as one of two inaugural recipients of the Stratingh Award, announced on April 2, 2026.
Established to honor outstanding early-career researchers in molecular chemistry, the award recognizes scientists within four years of completing their Ph.D. who demonstrate exceptional scientific creativity and the potential to shape the future of the field. The award is presented biennially at the GroMoChem International Symposium, where both recipients will deliver plenary lectures this May in Groningen, the Netherlands.
Podolsky's research sits at the chemistry-biology interface, exploring the origins of life and the development of synthetic biological systems. As a Schmidt Science Fellow in the laboratory of Professor Ronald T. Raines at MIT, she is working to replace essential enzymes with minimal peptide catalysts in yeast, a direction with far-reaching implications for both fundamental biochemistry and the future of peptide therapeutics for neurodegenerative disorders.
She earned her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of California, San Diego in 2022 under Professor Neal K. Devaraj, where her research focused on the synthesis and characterization of biomimetic compartments. Her training also includes structural biology at the National Institutes of Health and antibody-drug conjugate research at Seattle Genetics. She holds a patent for transmembrane protein semisynthesis on lipid vesicles, and her 12 peer-reviewed publications appear in Nature Reviews Chemistry, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Journal of the American Chemical Society, among other journals.
Podolsky is no stranger to the American Peptide Society community. At the 2025 American Peptide Symposium in San Diego, she received the oral presentation award, recognition that foreshadowed the growing international attention now coming her way. She has also delivered invited talks at the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London.
The co-recipient of the inaugural Stratingh Award is Patricia Izquierdo Garcia, a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions postdoctoral researcher in the group of Professor Ben L. Feringa at the University of Groningen, recognized for her work on nanographene-based molecular motors.
Both awardees will deliver plenary lectures at the GroMoChem International Symposium, May 10-13, 2026, Groningen, the Netherlands.
