The New York City-based John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has announced the U.S. and Canadian winners of its eighty-first annual fellowship program, with accompanying awards totaling $7.1 million.

The 186 recipients of this year's Guggenheim Fellowships are appointed for distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise of future accomplishment. Artists, scholars, and scientists selected from more than 3,000 applicants, they range in age from twenty-eight (New York composer Yotam Haber) to seventy-six (San Francisco writer, illustrator, and choreographer Remy Charlip). The selections were based on recommendations from hundreds of expert advisors — seven of whom are past Guggenheim fellows, including Joyce Carol Oates, Richard Rifkind, and Wendy Wasserstein — and were approved by the foundation's board of trustees.

The program considers applicants from seventy-nine different fields, ranging from the natural sciences to the creative arts, and has awarded almost $240 million in fellowships to more than 15,500 individuals since 1925. Many of this year's fellows are affiliated with colleges and universities, with seventy-nine institutions represented by one or more individuals.

For a list of this year's Guggenheim Fellows (Latin American and Caribbean fellows will be posted on June 2), see: http://www.gf.org/newfellow.html#top.