Grass Foundation

The Grass Foundation operates as one of the most narrowly focused neuroscience philanthropies in the United States, with a single defining commitment: supporting independent research by early-career investigators at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Founded in 1955 by Albert M. Grass and Ellen H. Robinson — co-founders of the Grass Instrument Company and pioneers in EEG technology — the Foundation now holds approximately $25.8 million in assets and annually distributes $1.1–1.3 million, overwhelmingly channeled through its flagship Grass Fellowship Program.

The Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals from institutions for general program support. Its two directly accessible pathways are the Grass Fellowship (open to late-stage predoctoral trainees and early-career postdoctoral researchers) and the Henry Grass Rising Stars in Neuroscience Award (for postdocs 3–7 years post-PhD from groups underrepresented in health sciences). All other institutional giving — to MBL's Neural Systems & Behavior and Neurobiology courses, the Society for Neuroscience's Latin American Training Program, IBRO's Teaching Tools Workshop in Africa, and the American Epilepsy Society — is directed through long-standing trustee relationships and is not accessible via open applications.

The governance structure reflects the Foundation's science-first identity. All 17 trustees serve without compensation, and the board includes some of the most prominent active neuroscientists in the country: Vanessa Ruta (Rockefeller University), Kafui Dzirasa (Duke University), Andre Fenton (NYU), and Bernice Grafstein (Weill Cornell Medical College), who serves as Vice President. Catherine E. Carr (University of Maryland) is President, and Henry J. Grass and Joshua Grass represent the founding family. This composition means proposals are evaluated by researchers who understand methodology at a granular level — scientific rigor is assumed, not aspirational.

First-time Fellowship applicants must grasp that the program is built around genuine intellectual independence. Fellows design their own experiments, work autonomously from any host advisor's agenda, and must articulate why MBL's specific resources — its Grass Laboratory infrastructure, marine organism diversity, and residential cross-disciplinary community — are essential rather than merely convenient. The relationship with MBL is not incidental: over 80% of all grant dollars flow directly to MBL for fellowship coordination, laboratory support, and course funding. Demonstrating familiarity with MBL's environment, ideally through prior course attendance in NS&B or the Neurobiology course, materially strengthens candidacy.

The Grass Foundation's grant-making is narrow in scope but deliberately structured. Total annual giving has ranged from $1.03 million (2020) to $2.20 million (2019, an outlier year), settling into a $1.1–1.3 million band for fiscal years 2021–2023. Net investment income from the Foundation's $25–27 million endowment is the sole revenue source — the Foundation has received no outside contributions since a $20,000 gift in 2020, and all 17 board members serve without compensation.

The top grantee list from 2022–2023 reveals extreme concentration. The Marine Biological Laboratory received $2,099,303 across nine grants — approximately 80% of total disbursements — covering Grass Fellowship coordinator support, the core fellowship program costs, and subsidies for the Neural Systems & Behavior and Neurobiology courses. The University of Maryland received $238,526 (faculty support tied to the Grass Lab director role), and the University of Arizona received $135,833 for the Grass Foundation Outreach Initiative. The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health received $60,000 to support Native American students in the NINDS Summer Internship Program.

The remaining grants are individual-level stipends and partner organization micro-grants. Individual Grass Fellows received payments of $500–$20,000 (with most clustered at $1,000–$2,000, representing travel or research cost reimbursements), while partner organizations like Fundacion Balseiro in Argentina ($10,000 for a Neuroscience Miniscope Workshop), the International Society for Neuroethology ($6,000 for travel grants), and the Society for Neuroscience ($3,000 for the Latin American Training Program) received mission-aligned support for global neuroscience training equity.

The Foundation's internal grant size data shows a median of $1,250 and an average of $47,621 across 70 grants tracked, reflecting a bimodal distribution: many small individual payments versus a handful of large institutional grants reaching $324,695. Geographic distribution of grants tracks closely to MBL's location and trustee home institutions: Massachusetts (13 grants), Maryland (11), Washington state (5), New York (6), California (7), DC (4), Connecticut (4), Illinois (4), Texas (2), and Kansas (2). No international grants appear in state-coded data, though partner organization grants reach Argentina, Africa, and Latin America.

The Grass Foundation occupies a distinctive niche in the neuroscience philanthropy landscape: a residential fellowship model tied to a single world-class laboratory, rather than the distributed individual-investigator grants characteristic of larger neuroscience funders.

The Grass Foundation is the smallest in this comparison by assets, but its per-fellow investment is disproportionately high — bundling laboratory space, housing, meals, travel, supplies, and 14 weeks of residential research time at MBL represents substantial all-in value per awardee. The McKnight and Kavli foundations require institutional nomination or formal partnership, making the Grass Fellowship and Rising Stars Award distinctive for being directly accessible to individual early-career scientists without gatekeeping by home institutions. The Whitehall Foundation is the closest structural analog — funding basic neuroscience with emphasis on invertebrate model organisms — though it supports independent lab projects rather than residential fellowships. The Grass-Kavli partnership since 2022 strategically connects this small foundation to the Kavli Foundation's much larger neuroscience ecosystem.

The Grass Foundation entered 2026 with a milestone: the 75th anniversary of the Grass Fellowship Program, first launched in 1951. The 2026 cohort of seven fellows — Gabrielle Bostwick (San Francisco State University), Asha Caslin (NYU School of Medicine), Julia Fechner (University of Tuebingen), Ashlan Reid (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory), Jack Supple (Imperial College London), Shubham Yadav (ETH Zurich / University of Zurich), and Wataru Yamamoto (Columbia University) — reflects the program's broadening international reach, with three fellows from non-U.S. institutions in Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Bostwick was named the 2026 Kavli-Grass Fellow, continuing the Kavli Foundation partnership established in 2022 that spotlights research at the intersection of neurobiology and changing ecosystems. Heather Rhodes of Denison University serves as Grass Lab director at MBL, with Horst Obenhaus as Lab Manager.

In early 2025, the Foundation's trustees named Christian Cazares, Ph.D., and Eddy Albarran, Ph.D., as the 2025 Henry Grass Rising Stars in Neuroscience Award recipients, each receiving $10,000. Applications for the 2026 award closed April 1, 2026, with 2027 applications opening January 1, 2027.

For the 2025 Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in San Diego, California, the Foundation published a Grass Community Guide and hosted the Grass Social on November 16, 2025. No trustee leadership changes have been publicly announced; the board composition has remained stable with Catherine Carr as President and Bernice Grafstein as VP.

The Grass Fellowship rewards specificity and authentic intellectual independence above all else. Trustees evaluate proposals on three explicitly stated criteria: clarity of presentation, scientific merit of the proposed research, and demonstrated capacity for independent work. Proposals that read as extensions of an advisor's ongoing agenda or that lack a compelling MBL-specific rationale are unlikely to advance.

Timing and deadlines: Use the October 15 priority deadline rather than the December 1 final deadline. Priority-track applicants receive written feedback from the Foundation — a rare opportunity in a competitive program with approximately 7–10 awards per year. Even a submission that does not result in a fellowship in the first cycle can be refined using that feedback for December resubmission or a future application year.

Proposal construction: The proposal may not exceed four pages and must include five elements: background and significance, specific aims, experimental plan, expected findings, and references. Every section should be written for a neuroscientist who is not a specialist in your subfield — assume broad knowledge of neuroscience but no familiarity with your organism, technique, or specific question. The section justifying why the research requires the MBL environment is evaluated as a distinct component; vague statements about "collegiality" or "resources" will not suffice. Name specific organisms available only in marine environments, specific equipment in the Grass Lab, or the value of the Neural Systems & Behavior or Neurobiology course community to your work.

Research alignment: Neurophysiology, biophysics, integrative neurobiology, neuroethology, systems neuroscience, cellular and developmental neurobiology, and epilepsy research all have explicit endorsement. Since 2022, the Kavli-Grass Fellowship designation targets one fellow per year whose project addresses neural systems in the context of changing ecosystems — a meaningful differentiator worth pursuing if your work fits.

Eligibility precision: Do not apply if you are simultaneously writing a Ph.D. thesis. International applicants must hold valid J-1, H-1B, F-1, or F-1 OPT status for the full 14-week program (Memorial Day through Labor Day). For the Henry Grass Rising Stars Award, applicants must be 3–7 years post-dissertation, self-identify as from underrepresented groups in health-related sciences, hold no tenure-track offer at time of application, and be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. Contact info@grassfoundation.org with eligibility questions.