The Helen Hay Whitney Foundation, established in New York in 1943 by Joan Whitney Payson in cooperation with the estate planning of her mother, Helen Hay Whitney (1875–1944), awards the "Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellowship" for support postdoctoral research in the biomedical sciences.

Helen Hay Whitney Foundation

Named after	Helen Hay Whitney
Formation	1943
Founder	Joan Whitney Payson
Founded at	New York
Website	hhwf.org

Currently the Foundation awards 20 fellowships per year.^[1] The award is one of four highly competitive postdoctoral awards in the life sciences,^[2] and many of North America's leading scientists and medical researchers were supported in the early stages of their career by the Whitney Foundation.

Members of the Scientific Advisory Committee have included:

• Barbara Meyer
• Erin O'Shea
• Matthew Scharff
• Daniel Kahne
• Thomas Jessell
• Stephen C. Harrison
• Julie Theriot
• Jonathan Weissman
• S. Lawrence Zipursky

Notable fellows have included:

• Eric J. Ackerman
• David Agard
• Ronald A. Albright
• David J. Anderson
• Karen M. Arndt
• Cornelia Bargmann
• Margaret Baron
• Mary Anne Berberich
• Megan Carey
• Elizabeth Chen
• Stephen Dinardo
• Thomas P. Dooley
• Stephen J. Elledge
• Stanley Fields
• Steven Finkel
• Andrew Fire
• Stephen C. Harrison
• Richard Henderson
• Tyler Jacks
• Wendell Lim
• Tomas Lindahl
• Santa J. Ono
• Susan Parkhurst
• Stanley Perlman
• Ronald T. Raines
• Michael Rosbash
• Gerald M. Rubin
• Rao Yi
• Keith Yamamoto
• Robert Weinberg
• Chris Q Doe