Anna Y.Q. Ho, Richards Family Assistant Professor of astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been named a 2026 Cottrell Scholar by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA). The cohort of 24 early career scholars in chemistry, physics, and astronomy will each receive an award of $120,000.
“This is an exceptional cohort of teacher scholars whose innovative work fuels discovery across the physical sciences,” said Eric Isaacs, President and CEO of RCSA.
Cottrell Scholars are chosen through a rigorous peer-review process of applications from public and private research universities and primarily undergraduate institutions in the United States and Canada. Their award proposals incorporate both research and science education. Ho’s proposal is titled “Fast Transients: Revealing the Diversity of Relativistic Stellar Explosions.”
Using telescopes throughout the world and in space, Ho studies the lives and deaths of stars and the physics of those phenomena and other energetic cosmic events. She uses wide-field surveys along with targeted observations from gamma-ray to radio wavelengths, and works to understand the physical processes governing the observed emission. Ho is an active member of several international collaborations and serves as co-chair of the Supernova & Relativistic Explosions working group of the Zwicky Transient Facility collaboration, as well as co-chair of the gamma-ray bursts working group for the ULTRASAT mission for which NASA is a partner.
Ho was part of a team that won one of RCSA’s inaugural Scialog: Early Science with the LSST awards. Her many other awards and honors include being named a Packard Fellow; winning an early-career Sloan Research Fellowship, and receiving the 2026 Newton Lacy Pierce Prize from the American Astronomical Society.
Previous Cornell recipients of the Cottrell Scholar award include Song Lin, Howard Milstein Faculty Fellow and Tisch University Professor in the Department of Chemistry; Nandini Ananth, professor of chemistry, and Kyle Shen, James A. Weeks Professor of Physical Sciences in the Department of Physics, all in A&S.
Linda B. Glaser is news and media relations manager for the College of Arts & Sciences.
