The 223 members of the 101st class of Guggenheim Fellows, announced on April 14, work across 55 disciplines. They are chosen through a rigorous application and peer-review process from a pool of nearly 5,000 applicants based on both prior career achievement and “exceptional promise,” the foundation said, adding that each Fellow receives a monetary stipend to pursue a project that is meaningful to them under “the freest possible conditions.” Platt was joined in winning the honor by UMass Amherst Department of Art associate professor of printmaking Juana Valdés.
“Congratulations to Stephen Platt and Juana Valdés, both of the UMass Amherst College of Humanities and Fine Arts, for being named 2026 Guggenheim Fellows in recognition of their career achievements and future promise,” said Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs. “Their exceptional contributions to their respective fields of history and art advance the common good on a national and global scale and we are proud they are members of our faculty community.”
"Congratulations to Stephen Platt and Juana Valdés on this well-deserved recognition,” said Maria del Guadalupe Davidson, dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts. “The Guggenheim Fellowship is one of the most competitive honors in American intellectual and creative life and having both of them recognized this year speaks to the depth of scholarship and creative work happening right here at UMass."
Platt is an award-winning historian of modern China who explores the cultural, intellectual and military aspects of China’s encounters with the wider world in the 19th and 20th centuries.
“It’s an incredible and humbling honor,” he said of receiving the Fellowship. “I work on Chinese history, which is not a mainstream field, and it means a lot to have the endorsement of the Guggenheim Foundation and the scholars who served as judges this year. It’s an amazing feeling to be able to look forward to a year off from all my other duties so I can focus entirely on research and writing for my next book.”
“Our new class of Guggenheim Fellows is representative of the world’s best thinkers, innovators, and creators in art, science, and scholarship,” said Edward Hirsch, award-winning poet and President of the Guggenheim Foundation. “As the Foundation enters its second century and looks to the future, I feel confident that this new class of 223 individuals will do bold and inspiring work, undaunted by the challenges ahead. We are honored to support their visionary contributions.”
Since its founding in 1925 by Senator Simon Guggenheim, the Foundation has awarded nearly $450 million in fellowships to more than 19,000 Fellows, among whom are more than 125 Nobel laureates, members of all the national academies, winners of the Pulitzer Prize, Fields Medal, Turing Award, Bancroft Prize, National Book Award and other internationally recognized honors.