In the run-up to the 27 th IUCr Congress in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, the AUC’s Education and Workforce Development Committee is very pleased to announce that the 2026 winner of the inaugural George M. Sheldrick Award is Professor Stephanie A. Wankowicz, of Vanderbilt University.
The George M. Sheldrick Award for Contributions to Structural Science recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of molecular structure determination including innovative methods, algorithms, or software. Open to non-tenured and early-career researchers, this award celebrates those who push the boundaries of molecular structure analysis by creating new tools or refining existing ones to solve complex structural problems.
Professor Wankowicz has endeavored to bring entropic flexibility to computational structural biology, which has historically been bound by static dogma, within the realm of structural refinements. She has actively worked within the
structural bioinformatics community, to encourage best practices and reproducibility going forward, which also falls within the spirit of the award. For a relevant selection of her publications, click here, here and here.
The Sheldrick Award will be bestowed at the 27 th Congress and General Assembly of the IUCr, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Along with the monetary award of $3,000, payment of IUCr Congress registration fees, and an award certificate, this recognition includes the opportunity to give a keynote presentation. We, of the AUC, hope you will join us at the IUCr Congress for Professor Wankowicz’s keynote, which is currently scheduled for Tuesday, August 18th at 9AM.
