Associate Professors Yuan (Daniel) Cheng and Audrey Dorélien are recipients of the University of Minnesota's 2023 McKnight Presidential Fellowship, a three-year award given to the most promising individuals who have been granted both tenure and promotion to associate professor in an academic year.

It recognizes recipients who are recommended by their college dean and chosen at the discretion of the executive vice president and provost based on excellence in research and scholarship, leadership, potential to build top-tier programs, and ability to advance University of Minnesota priorities.

Cheng is a scholar in the field of public and nonprofit management, and has an international reputation for his interdisciplinary research in the areas of government-nonprofit relations, coproduction, and cross-sector collaboration. 

Dorélien is a population health researcher. She studies the impacts of climate change and infectious disease exposure on maternal and child health. She also studies how human behavior and population dynamics affect the spread and severity of infectious disease.