The New York City-based John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has announced the winners of its 2023 Guggenheim Fellowships. 

Selected from nearly 2,500 applicants on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise, the 171 fellows include scientists, writers, scholars, and artists ranging in age from 31 to 85. This year’s cohort represents 48 scholarly disciplines and artistic fields, 72 academic institutions, 24 states and the District of Columbia, and two Canadian provinces.

Recipients include David Scott, a Columbia University professor of anthropology; Gordana Dukovic, University of Colorado Boulder chemistry professor; Kelly Copper, a dramatist from Long Island City, New York; Stephen R. Meyers, a University of Wisconsin-Madison geoscience professor; and Martine Syms, a filmmaker from Los Angeles. In addition, gifts from friends and previous fellows have helped support this year’s fellows. Actor and director Robert De Niro underwrote Lavar Munroe’s fellowship in fine arts in honor of his father, Robert De Niro, Sr., a 1968 Guggenheim Fellow; Park S. Nobel, a 1973 Guggenheim Fellow, partially underwrote a fellowship in biology for Monica Dus, an associate professor at the University of Michigan; and Wendy Belzberg and Strauss Zelnick underwrote Abraham Verghese’s fellowship in general nonfiction in honor of Stacy Schiff, a 1996 Guggenheim Fellow.

“Like Emerson, I believe that fullness in life comes from following our calling,” said Edward Hirsch, president of the Guggenheim Foundation and a 1985 fellow in poetry. “The new class of fellows has followed their calling to enhance all of our lives, to provide greater human knowledge and deeper understanding. We’re lucky to look to them to bring us into the future.”

For a complete list of 2023 Guggenheim Fellows, see the Guggenheim Foundation website.

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Jacob Ammentorp Lund)