The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has announced its 101st class of fellows, selecting 223 artists, scientists and scholars across 55 fields. Among them, four individuals of Indian origin have been recognised in different categories. The 2026 list features Amitav Ghosh in general nonfiction, Megha Majumdar in fiction, Vivek Narayanan in poetry, and Vinod Vaikuntanathan in computer science. They were chosen through a rigorous peer-reviewed process from nearly 5,000 applicants, based on both past achievements and future promise.
Ghosh, based in Brooklyn, is known for his work on identity and history in South Asia and received the Jnanpith Award in 2018. Majumdar, who teaches at CUNY Hunter College, gained prominence with A Burning, a New York Times bestseller. Her second novel, A Guardian and a Thief, was shortlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction and won the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for the Excellence in Fiction.
Contributions in poetry and science
Narayanan, a faculty member at George Mason University, was born in India and raised in Zambia. He studied at Stanford University and later completed his MFA at Boston University. Vaikuntanathan, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, works in cryptography, including homomorphic encryption. He shared the 2022 Godel Prize and co-founded Duality Tech. According to foundation president Edward Hirsch, the new fellows represent leading voices across art, science and scholarship.
Founded in 1925, the foundation has awarded nearly $450 million to over 19,000 fellows, supporting independent work under flexible conditions. The 2026 class spans 97 institutions across the US, Canada and other countries, with fellows aged between 28 and 76.