Guggenheim Foundation

What a pleasure it was to continue our Centennial celebrations in Boston this week! On May 12th, we gathered with New England-area Fellows at the beautiful Boston Public Library to raise a glass to the Foundation’s first 100 years. We enjoyed a speech from our president, Edward Hirsch (1985 Fellow in Poetry); musical performances by tabla player and composer Sandeep Das (2019 Fellow in Music Composition) and saxophonist and composer Miguel Zenón (2008 Fellow in Music Composition); as well as remarks by acclaimed sociologist and Committee of Selection member Mary C. Waters (1993 Fellow in Sociology) and statistician, computational neuroscientist, anesthesiologist, and Guggenheim Foundation Trustee Emery N. Brown (2015 Fellow in Applied Mathematics). Thank you for helping us keep the party going! (📸 @michaelmanningphotography )

Congratulations to our 2026 Pulitzer Prize (@pulitzerprizes ) winners and finalists! Winners: M. Gessen (2017 Fellow in General Nonfiction): Winner in Opinion Writing Jill Lepore (2014 Fellow in U.S. History): Winner in History for “We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution” Amanda Vaill (2000 Fellow in Dance Studies): Winner in Biography for “Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution” Yiyun Li (2020 Fellow in Fiction): Winner in Memoir or Biography for “Things in Nature Merely Grow” Gabriela Lena Frank (2009 Fellow in Music Composition): Winner in Music for “Picaflor: A Future Myth” Finalists: Michael J. Lewis (2008 Fellow in Architecture, Planning, and Design): Finalist in Criticism Katie Kitamura (2025 Fellow in Fiction): Finalist in Fiction for “Audition” Patricia Smith (2014 Fellow in Poetry): Finalist in Poetry for “The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems” Andrew Rindfleisch (1995 Fellow in Music Composition): Finalist in Music for “American Descent” Billy Childs (2009 Fellow in Music Composition): Finalist in Music for “In the Arms of the Beloved” #pulitzer

Larry Levis received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry in 1982. When he applied for his Fellowship, Levis had already written three well-regarded books of poems, including “The Dollmaker’s Ghost,” which won the Open Competition of the National Poetry Series in 1981. During his Guggenheim Fellowship, he completed his fourth book, “Winter Stars.” Re-released this year with an introduction from Paisley Rekdal (2014 Fellow in Poetry), “Winter Stars” was lauded for Levis’s unique ability “to combine so artfully the skills of the novelist and those of the poet. Levis’s gift in this, perhaps his finest work, reveals itself in that attention to detail that is the novelist’s creed, and the compulsion to say what must be said, even if one has stopped believing, that marks the poet’s calling” (Kliat Paperback Book Guide). Swipe to read “In the City of Light,” a poem from this collection. Born in landlocked central California, Levis grew up working on his father’s vineyard. In college, he studied with poet Philip Levine (1973 and 1980 Fellow in Poetry), who remained influential throughout Levis’s life. After “Winter Stars,” Levis published only one more book of poetry, “The Widening Spell of the Leaves,” before he died in 1996 at the age of 49. This year, “Swirl & Vortex,” Levis’s full collected works, was published. Read 2026 Fellow Elisa Gabbert’s (@elisa_gabbert ) review of the book in @nytimes at the link in our Stories. Photo: University of Pittsburgh Press #nationalpoetrymonth

Joanne M. Simpson received her Guggenheim Fellowship in Earth Science in 1954 when she was 31 years old. Four years earlier, at @uchicago , she had become the first American woman to receive a doctorate in meteorology. Throughout her long career, her focus was on the myriad ways clouds impact the world’s climate. Initially intrigued by clouds as a sailor and private pilot, Simpson developed the first scientific model of clouds as a research associate at @whoi.ocean . Part of this research required her to fly an old Navy airplane into the notably tall clouds near the equator. At the time, WHOI didn’t allow women to do field work, but the naval officer who arranged the expedition told the WHOI director, “No Joanne, no airplane.” She identified that tropical clouds weren’t the result of atmospheric circulation; rather, they caused it. She continued this research as a Guggenheim Fellow, during a year spent at @imperialcollege in London, studying the structure and growth processes of cumulus clouds. Alongside her mentor Dr. Herbert Riehl, Simpson developed the “hot tower” hypothesis in the late 1950s, which explained how trade winds keep blowing and how hurricanes are powered by the heat they retain. Over the course of her career, she worked as a professor at @ucla and @uva and headed the Experimental Meteorology Laboratory at the National Weather Bureau (now @noaa ). In what she considered the highest accomplishment of her career, she worked at @nasa , where, starting in 1986, she led the study science team for the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, the first space-based rain radar, which provided invaluable insight about how hurricanes begin and what impacts rainfall. Simpson was the first female president of the American Meteorological Society and received its highest honor, the Carl-Gustav Rossby Research Medal, in 1983. In 2002, she was the first woman to receive the International Meteorological Organization Prize. She died in 2010 at the age of 86. Photo 1: Joanne M. Simpson by Jan Hahn, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Photo 2 Joanne M. Simpson, courtesy of The Schlesinger Library, NASA Earth Observatory #earthday

Did you see the announcement of our 2026 Fellows in the @nytimes on Sunday? So fun to keep celebrating our 101st class! #guggfellows2026 (Music by Thelonious Monk, 1976 Fellow in Music Composition)

Bravo to our 2026 Fellows in the Creative Arts! #guggfellows2026

Hurrah to our 2026 Fellows in the Humanities! #guggfellows2026

A round of applause for our 2026 Fellows in Interdisciplinary Studies! #guggfellows2026

Three cheers for our 2026 Guggenheim Fellows in the Natural Sciences! #guggfellows2026

Congratulations to our 2026 Guggenheim Fellows in the Social Sciences! #guggfellows2026

Congratulations to the 101st class of Guggenheim Fellows! And welcome to the Fellowship. A message from Edward Hirsch, President of the Guggenheim Foundation and 1985 Fellow. Find the full list of new Fellows at the link in our bio.

Before our (very) big announcement, a moment for our mission. Get ready to meet the 2026 Class of Guggenheim Fellows in not too long at all! 👀