Full Breakdown
2026 MacArthur Fellows: A Cross-Disciplinary Cohort Receives $800,000 “Genius” Grants
By Drooid · · How we work
Core Announcement
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced its 2026 class of Fellows on Tuesday. Twenty individuals from a range of artistic, scientific and humanitarian fields will each receive an $800,000 stipend paid in quarterly installments over five years, with no conditions on how the money is spent. Recipients are chosen by a network of external nominators; they do not apply for the award.
Data & Statistics
- Number of fellows: 20
- Academic affiliation: 14 fellows (70 %) hold positions at U.S. colleges, universities or research facilities.
- Age range: 29 – 69; the oldest recipient is 69-year-old artist Chip Thomas, and the youngest is 29-year-old saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins.
- Fields represented: visual and performance art, choreography, poetry, fiction, sociology, philosophy, labor economics, history, environmental science, climate science, organic chemistry, theoretical physics, chemical and bio-engineering, forensic anthropology, and jazz composition.
Notable Recipients
- Chip Thomas (69, Flagstaff, Arizona) – A former primary-care physician on the Navajo Nation who creates large-scale photo murals on reservation spaces. He said the grant will help revive his “Painted Desert Project” and expand arts programming for Navajo students.
- Kate Spradley (53, San Marcos, Texas) – Forensic anthropologist who founded Operation Identification, a cross-border effort to repatriate the remains of migrants who died along the Texas-Mexico border.
- Christine Sun Kim (46, Berlin, Germany) – Deaf artist who translates sound into visual and tactile media, using charcoal drawings and performance to make musical nuance accessible to non-signers.
- Liangfang Zhang (46, San Diego) – Chemical engineer developing “stealth” nanomedicine that cloaks therapeutic particles with natural cell membranes, enabling drug delivery without immune rejection.
Other fellows include sociologist Holly Jean Buck (climate-justice research), philosopher Felipe De Brigard (memory and forgiveness), labor economist Ellora Derenoncourt (racial wealth gaps), historian Elizabeth Ellis (Indigenous diplomacy), environmental scientist Kaiyu Guan (data-driven agriculture), climate scientist Marika Holland (polar-sea-ice dynamics), organic chemist Song Lin (electrochemical synthesis), novelist Maaza Mengiste (political-violence narratives), historian Ariel Ron (19th-century agriculture), visual artist Vincent Valdez (Chicano experience), poet Layli Long Soldier (Native-American legal language), and jazz saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins (historical-narrative composition).
Official Statements & Responses
Chip Thomas, upon learning of his selection, described the moment as emotional and expressed a desire to bring arts programming to students on the Navajo Nation.
Verbatim Quotes
- “For 45 years, MacArthur Fellows have defied boundaries, by questioning conventions, crossing disciplines, and driving collective progress,” — Kristen Mack, Vice President, Communications, MacArthur Fellows and Partnerships, as part of the announc
Why It Matters
The unrestricted nature of the grant allows fellows to pursue high-risk, interdisciplinary projects that might otherwise lack funding. Climate researchers such as Holly Jean Buck and Marika Holland can deepen community-focused climate-justice work; artists like Chip Thomas and Christine Sun Kim can expand public engagement with Indigenous histories and sensory perception; scientists such as Vincenzo Vitelli and Liangfang Zhang can accelerate breakthroughs in materials science and nanomedicine. Collectively, the cohort illustrates the foundation’s commitment to fostering innovation across societal, environmental and cultural domains.
What’s Next
Each fellow will begin receiving quarterly payments of $160,000 over the next five years. The foundation has not announced any additional public events or reporting requirements tied to the awards.
