The MacArthur Foundation announced the 20 recipients of its 2026 MacArthur Fellowships, commonly known as "genius grants," on Tuesday. Each fellow will receive a total award of $800,000, distributed in annual installments of $160,000 over five years. The fellowship is intended as an investment in individuals’ creativity and potential rather than a recognition of past achievements.
The fellows, who span a diverse range of disciplines and geographic locations, were nominated by a rotating group of external experts representing various fields. The foundation emphasizes the grant’s purpose to provide recipients the financial flexibility to pursue innovative ideas that could have significant societal impact.
Among this year’s honorees is Vincenzo Vitelli, a 48-year-old theoretical physicist at the University of Chicago. Vitelli, whose research encompasses metamaterials, information physics, liquid crystals, spin glasses, and the modeling of complex biological and non-biological systems, is currently residing in Paris on a research fellowship at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). In a recent conversation from Paris, Vitelli described his initial disbelief upon receiving news of the fellowship. Born in Matera, Italy, and educated at Imperial College London and Harvard University, he joined the University of Chicago faculty in 2017. Vitelli spoke warmly of his family and expressed hopes to use the grant to explore new research ideas, as well as to support his young son.
The 2026 MacArthur Fellows hail from a broad array of academic, artistic, and scientific disciplines. They include sociologist Holly Jean Buck of the University at Buffalo, who studies the social and ethical dimensions of climate and energy policy; cognitive scientist Felipe De Brigard of Duke University, focusing on memory and imagination; and labor economist Ellora Derenoncourt of Princeton University, who investigates racial wealth disparities.
Other notable recipients include historian Elizabeth Ellis, also at Princeton, who researches Indigenous politics and sovereignty in early North America; environmental scientist Kaiyu Guan of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who works on agricultural ecosystem sustainability; and choreographer Trajal Harrell of the Zürich Dance Ensemble, recognized for blending various dance traditions.
The arts are well represented, with Berlin-based artist Christine Sun Kim, poet Layli Long Soldier of Santa Fe, visual artists Rodney McMillian and Vincent Valdez, and fiction writers Maaza Mengiste and Bryan Washington among those recognized. Scientific honorees include chemical engineer Liangfang Zhang of the University of California San Diego, who develops nanotechnologies for drug delivery, and organic chemist Song Lin of Stanford University, who focuses on electrochemical synthesis.
This year’s fellows also include historian Ariel Ron of Southern Methodist University, forensic anthropologist Kate Spradley of Texas State University, saxophonist and composer Immanuel Wilkens from Brooklyn, and artist Chip Thomas of Flagstaff, Arizona, known for public art rooted in community histories.
The MacArthur Foundation’s annual awards continue to elevate innovators across disciplines, providing them with the resources to advance knowledge, culture, and public understanding worldwide.