WashU Medicine Celebrates the Winners of the 2026 Winston Fellow Competition

The John F. Hardesty, MD, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at WashU Medicine proudly announces the winners of the 2026 Winston Fellow Competition. This annual event showcases outstanding research contributions from postdoctoral fellows and graduate students. We extend our heartfelt congratulations to the award recipients.

Winners of the 2026 Winston Fellow Awards

ITVS Graduate Student Winner: Ramiz Somjee, Holehouse Lab & Corbo Lab

It is a great privilege to be recognized with this award. I’m deeply grateful to my mentors and the vision science community at WashU for their support. This recognition inspires me to continue my research on photoreceptor cell identity mechanisms and to explore how these insights can be translated to improve human health.

-Ramiz Somjee

Postdoctoral Fellow Winner: Ismael Hernández Núñez, PhD, Clark Lab

“I am deeply honored to receive the Winston Fellow Award. The opportunity of working with great researchers in the retinal biology field has encouraged me to pursue my goals of elucidating the role of DNA demethylation in different aspects of retinal development”.

– Ismael Hernández-Núñez, PhD

We also recognize and applaud the excellence of this year’s postdoctoral finalists and graduate student finalists.

Postdoctoral Finalists

Andrew Jo, PhD, Kerschensteiner Lab
A conserved multiplexed retinal channel for active vision
Poonam Naik, PhD, Apte Lab
Targeting choroidal neovascularization by chimeric antigen receptor macrophage (CAR
Ismael Hernández-Núñez, Clark Lab
DNA demethylation is required for retinal development, cell fate specification, differentiation, and function
Siqi Sun, PhD, Zhang Lab
Multimodal prediction of visual improvement in diabetic macular edema using real-world electronic health records and optical coherence tomography
Saman Behboudi Tanourlouee, DVM, Williams Lab
Different survival of retinal ganglion cells and amacrine cells in branch retinal vein occlusion
Minglei Zhao, PhD, Williams Lab
Defining the features of primary cilia in the retinal ganglion cells

Graduate Student Finalists

Haneen Alfauri, Rajagopal and Zhou Labs
OcuScan 3D: Advancing diagnosis through eye motion tracking
Chao Ren, Zhou Lab
Multimodal Evaluation of Murine Uveitis Manifestations Using Dual
Ramiz Somjee, Corbo & Holehouse Labs
Understanding the role of Samd7 in photoreceptor cell identity
Xiayingfang Song, Kerschensteiner Lab
A binocular disparity circuit in the superior colliculus for three-dimensional prey capture

Thank you to everyone who participated and made this competition a vibrant display of innovation within the vision science community. We also thank our faculty judges, whose time and expertise were invaluable in evaluating these excellent presentations.

Congratulations to this year’s Winston Fellows — your curiosity, rigor, and dedication are what drive science forward. I am deeply grateful to the Winston family for their continued generosity and their belief in the next generation of scientists. Awards like this one matter not just for what they recognize, but for the community they help build.

-Daniel Kerschensteiner, MD

A special note of gratitude to the Winston family, whose continued support makes this opportunity possible and helps foster the next generation of vision researchers. The Winston Fellow Award Program recognizes excellent contributions to vision science by sponsoring an annual $5,000 graduate student award and $2,500 postdoctoral award.