The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has announced its 2026 class of fellows, awarding 20 scholars, artists and researchers its signature no-strings-attached grants of $800,000 each. The fellowships, widely known as "genius grants," are among the most prestigious and least restrictive awards in American intellectual and creative life, allowing recipients to use the money however they see fit.
This year's cohort spans a notably wide range of professional disciplines, from organic chemistry to public art to forensic anthropology. Yet the foundation's network of anonymous scouts, who identify candidates over a confidential multi-year process, selected a group whose members often converge on shared themes from strikingly different angles—among them climate policy, racial economic inequality, migration and the nature of human connection.
Among the most prominent threads running through the 2026 class is a focus on climate change and the ethical questions it raises. Holly Jean Buck, a sociologist at the University of Buffalo, was recognized for work centering on the political and moral dimensions of climate policy. Her 2019 book, "After Geoengineering," argues that systems designed to remove carbon from the atmosphere must serve local communities and the broader public interest rather than being structured around corporate profit.
Buck's selection reflects a growing recognition within philanthropy that the technical challenges of climate change cannot be separated from questions of governance, equity and who benefits from large-scale interventions. As carbon removal moves from theoretical debate toward potential deployment, the design choices behind such systems—and who gets to make them—are becoming central policy questions.
The foundation also honored several fellows whose work addresses the legacy of racial inequality in the United States. Ellora Derenoncourt, a labor economist and economic historian, studies wage gaps between racial groups, bringing historical data to bear on one of the most persistent puzzles in the American economy: why earnings disparities between Black and white workers have proved so durable despite decades of civil rights legislation and economic growth.
Forensic anthropologist Kate Spradley was recognized for her work repatriating the remains of migrants who died along the Texas-Mexico border. Her efforts sit at the intersection of science and justice, using forensic methods to identify the deceased and return them to their families—a task that has taken on added urgency amid ongoing debates over border policy and the treatment of migrant remains.
Chemistry also features in the 2026 class. Song Lin, an organic chemist, was among the fellows named, recognized for research that advances the field's fundamental understanding of chemical reactions—work that could eventually influence how pharmaceuticals, materials and other products are manufactured.
The arts are well represented as well, and in some unconventional forms. One fellow is a saxophonist whose live performances incorporate a chef cooking meals onstage, blurring the boundaries between concert, culinary experience and communal gathering. The selection underscores the MacArthur Foundation's willingness to recognize creative practices that do not fit neatly into traditional categories.
Visual and sound artist Christine Sun Kim, philosopher and cognitive scientist Felipe De Brigard, and novelist Bryan Washington were all cited as exploring human connection and healing—though from radically different creative and intellectual standpoints. Kim's work often engages with sound, language and accessibility, while De Brigard studies the mind and memory, and Washington's fiction examines intimacy, family and place.
Public artist Chip Thomas, also known as Jetsonorama, was among those honored. His large-scale installations, often mounted in rural and Indigenous communities, bring art into everyday spaces rather than confining it to galleries and museums—a practice that reflects a broader movement to democratize who gets to make and experience contemporary art.
The MacArthur Fellowship program is unusual in the philanthropic world for its absence of reporting requirements or designated purposes. Recipients are free to spend the money on anything—paying off debt, funding new projects, taking a sabbatical or simply gaining the financial breathing room to take creative risks. The foundation describes the award as an investment in a person's potential rather than in a specific project.
That structure has made the fellowship a transformative moment for many past recipients, particularly artists and researchers whose work falls outside well-funded mainstream channels. The designation itself—the "genius" label that the foundation does not officially use—also raises recipients' public profiles, often opening doors to new collaborations, speaking engagements and funding opportunities.
The 2026 class arrives at a moment when both the sciences and the arts face shifting political and economic pressures. Federal research funding, immigration policy and public support for the humanities have all been subjects of intense debate, making private philanthropy's role in sustaining independent inquiry and creative work especially consequential. The MacArthur Foundation's selections offer a snapshot of where its scouts believe the most promising and necessary work is happening.
Notably, several fellows work on issues that resist easy disciplinary boundaries—climate ethics, racial wage gaps, the repatriation of human remains—requiring expertise that crosses economics, sociology, anthropology and law. This interdisciplinary character has become a hallmark of recent MacArthur classes, reflecting a broader recognition that many of the hardest problems do not respect the borders of academic departments.
For the winners, the award represents not only a substantial financial sum but also a validation of work that is often slow, unglamorous and conducted far from the public spotlight. Forensic identification of migrant remains, for instance, proceeds case by case over years, while research on historical wage data requires painstaking archival work. The fellowship's chief value may lie in giving such efforts the visibility and stability they rarely receive.
The complete list of 2026 fellows spans the sciences, social sciences and arts, and includes scholars and practitioners whose work touches on climate, chemistry, history, health, migration and culture. The foundation's announcement is timed to the traditional late-September release of the fellows, generated each year by a confidential selection process that solicits nominations from a wide network of experts and leaders.
Past MacArthur fellows include some of the most influential figures in American cultural and intellectual life, from writers and musicians to scientists and activists. The award's no-strings structure has long been celebrated as a rare vote of confidence in individual judgment—an acknowledgment that the most valuable work often cannot be planned or predicted in advance.
With this year's class, the foundation again places its bets on a diverse group united less by method than by a shared willingness to confront difficult questions: how to make climate policy just, how to close stubborn economic gaps, how to honor the dead and how to connect with one another. The grants give each of the 20 recipients the resources to keep pursuing those questions on their own terms.
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