New America Announces Fellows’ Class of 2026

WASHINGTON, DC — New America announced today its Class of 2026 New America Fellows, awarding 10 dynamic storytellers with the opportunity to pursue their creative visions. From among many disciplines that applied this year, the 2026 program will support one feature-length documentary film, one film-to-book project, and eight nonfiction books. The full roster can be found here.

Since 1999, over 300 New America Fellows have highlighted the major issues shaping America’s future—from climate change to cybersecurity to criminal justice reform. New America Fellows have authored bestsellers, produced feature-length films, and earned some of the world’s most prestigious honors, including Pulitzer Prizes, Emmy Awards, National Magazine Awards, MacArthur and Carnegie Fellowships, and, this year, an Oscar nomination.

Sugarcane—a project developed over two separate New America Fellowships by filmmakers Emily Kassie (Class of 2023) and Julian Brave NoiseCat (Class of 2022)—received an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature in 2025, uncovering evidence of infanticide at an Indian residential school in Canada.

Class of 2017 New America Fellow Patrick Radden Keefe, a longtime staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of five books, celebrated on-screen success last fall for the adaptation of his New York Times bestseller Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, which premiered in November 2024 on FX on Hulu. He joined the New America Board in 2024 and continues to elevate bold, investigative storytelling that drives public understanding and impact.

“At New America, we recognize that solutions to public problems are often catalyzed by accessible, engaging mediums, not just from policy recommendations and data analysis,” says Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America. “Change can come from reading an incredible book or watching a powerful film. Progress happens across mediums and disciplines, which is why I am so proud of our New America Fellows and their creative solutions to confronting power, finding truth, and reimagining what’s possible.”

Every year, New America carefully selects its Fellows through a rigorous and competitive process. This year’s New America Fellows class stood out among a competitive candidate pool of 373 applicants, with 283 applicants based in the United States across 38 states and the District of Columbia, while 90 applied from abroad, representing 37 countries.

The fellowship supports individuals as they develop projects grounded in in-depth research, sharp reporting, nuanced analysis, and thoughtful storytelling. This year’s cohort will pursue ambitious visions on a wide range of subjects, including the power of community colleges, the crisis of American manhood, and the climate disaster recovery economy.

“This year’s class represents a bold and dynamic group of storytellers committed to shaping public discourse through their work. We are proud to foster a communal, supportive environment where each of our Fellows can develop projects that drive impact and push the boundaries of narrative,” said Fellows Program Director Awista Ayub.

To help celebrate 25 years of impact, New America launched the Fellows Archive as a digital home to showcase over 200 groundbreaking works by New America Fellows. The archive now also features 25 new stories of impact, including voices such as Clint Smith, author of the #1 New York Times best seller How the Word Is Passed, and Jeff Goodell, bestselling author of The Heat Will Kill You First, among many others.

New America’s Fellows Program thanks its board of directors, ASU’s Center on the Future of War, and New America’s Center on Education and Labor for their support this year.

Class of 2026 New America Fellows

Jake Bittle, New America Fellow

Jake Bittle is a staff writer at the nonprofit news outlet Grist and the author of The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration. Bittle is currently working on a book about the turbulent transformation of Bakersfield, California, from fossils to sustainability.

Marcella Bombardieri, New America Fellow

Marcella Bombardieri is a Polk Award–winning journalist and higher education policy researcher. She is writing a book that chronicles the lives of community college students and leaders in one Texas city, illustrating why community colleges are an essential tool to fight poverty and shore up democracy.

Mark Chiusano, New America Fellow

Mark Chiusano is a journalist and the author of The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos. Chiusano spent the last year working app-based jobs, from delivery biking to rideshare driving to online rating, to report for his current book project about the underbelly of the gig economy.

Grace M. Cho, New America (ASU Future Security) Fellow

Grace M. Cho is a nonfiction writer, professor of sociology at the College of Staten Island, CUNY, and the author of Tastes Like War: A Memoir. Cho’s current book project is a hybrid work of creative nonfiction and interdisciplinary scholarship that examines the Korean War through the lens of her family’s experience of the war’s devastation and afterlife.

Anuj Chopra, New America (ASU Future Security) Fellow

Anuj Chopra is an award-winning journalist and a Washington, DC-based reporter for Agence France-Presse. He is working on a nonfiction book about Saudi Arabia, a profile of the kingdom in the age of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Gabriella García-Pardo, New America Fellow

Gabriella García-Pardo is a Colombian-American filmmaker whose work explores the relationship between land, identity, and belonging across the United States and Latin America. García-Pardo is currently directing FENCED, a darkly humorous documentary that uses fences as a lens to examine private property, American identity, and the human desire to control the world around us.

Marielena Hincapié, New America Fellow

Marielena Hincapié is a nationally recognized immigrant justice leader, strategist, and democracy advocate. She is writing a narrative nonfiction book, Becoming America: A Personal History of a Nation’s Immigration Wars, telling the sweeping history of America’s immigration through the story of a single family—her own.

Dan Xin Huang, New America Fellow

Dan Xin Huang is an independent writer and journalist whose work has been featured in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New Republic, New York magazine, and more. He is currently working on a book about the entwined braids of education and class in America, told through the story of one Appalachian school district.

Daniel Lombroso, New America Fellow

Daniel Lombroso is a director and journalist who spent the past nine years building the Oscar-nominated video departments at The New Yorker and The Atlantic. His upcoming feature film and book explore the booming penis enlargement industry as a raw, intimate lens on masculinity, body image, and male mental health.

Saket Soni, New America Fellow

Saket Soni is an award-winning labor organizer, the founder and director of Resilience Force, and the author of The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America. Soni’s next book, Hurricane Hustlers, is a deeply reported look inside the soon-to-be trillion-dollar climate disaster recovery economy, through the lives of people entrenched in the hustle—including undocumented immigrant roofers, the CEOs of major restoration companies, and Federal Emergency Management Agency czars.