8 scholars with Iowa ties named Guggenheim Fellows

Eight University of Iowa-affiliated scholars are among those selected for 2026 Guggenheim Fellowships.

Sivan Cohen Elias, former visiting assistant professor of composition and director of the Electronic Music Studio, was recognized for outstanding work in music composition. An electroacoustic intermedia composer, audiovisual artist, and performer-improviser, she now teaches at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Her cross-disciplinary work blends modified and digitally extended instruments, sound objects, gesture, and video to explore themes of failure, entanglement, and illusion. Her music has been performed internationally.

Filmmaker Christopher Harris, former associate professor in film and video production, was recognized for outstanding work in film-video. Now teaching at Princeton University, he creates films and installations that examine African American historiography through experimental cinema. His work has screened widely at festivals, museums, and cinematheques, and his current project is a series of optically printed 16mm films in dialogue with canonical African American literature.

Novelist and critic Lucy Ives, a 2005 graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, was recognized for outstanding work in fiction. She is the author of three novels - Impossible Views of the World; Loudermilk: Or, The Real Poet; Or, The Origin of the World; and Life Is Everywhere - and her writing has appeared in Art in America, Artforum, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Granta, and The Paris Review. She has taught at Brown, Cornell, and New York universities.

Novelist and essayist Bret Anthony Johnston, a 2002 graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, was recognized for outstanding work in fiction. His books include the novels Remember Me Like This and We Burn Daylight and the short story collections Corpus Christi: Stories and Encounters with Unexpected Animals. After more than a decade directing Harvard's creative writing program, he now leads the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin.

Poet and playwright Suji Kwock Kim, a 1997 graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, was recognized for outstanding work in poetry. Her collections include Disorient, Notes from the North, and Notes from the Divided Country, with work appearing in The New York Times, Slate, and The Paris Review. She currently is a UNESCO Writer-in-Residence in Bucheon, South Korea, and holds 2026 fellowships with the Creative Capital Foundation in New York and the Royal Society of Literature in England.

Interdisciplinary artist riel Sturchio, assistant professor of instruction, was recognized for outstanding work in photography. Working across constructed photography, large silver gelatin darkroom prints, writing, and collaborative projects, they draw on their experiences with queerness and illness to examine norms of beauty, ability, and gender. With their twin sister, they co-founded Begin Collective, a community-based photography initiative for people at the intersection of LGBTQ+, disability, chronic illness, and neurodivergence.

Novelist Madeleine Thien, a 2008 participant in Iowa's International Writing Program, was recognized for outstanding work in fiction. A Canadian-born writer and Brooklyn College faculty member, she is the author of The Book of Records, longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and named by President Barack Obama as a summer 2025 read, and Do Not Say We Have Nothing, shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She has also published a children's book, The Chinese Violin.

Robb Willer, who earned a BA in sociology from Iowa in 1999, was recognized for outstanding work in sociology. A professor at Stanford University, he directs the Politics and Social Change Lab and co-directs the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. His teaching and research focus on social forces that bring people together, forces that divide them, and domains of social life that feature the complex interplay of the two.

The Guggenheim Foundation's 101st Class of Fellows includes 223 trailblazing artists, scientists, and scholars across 55 disciplines, recognized for prior achievement and exceptional promise. Fellowships provide a monetary stipend and are open to U.S. and Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Since its establishment in 1925, the foundation has awarded nearly $450 million to more than 19,000 individuals.

More information is available on the Guggenheim website.