Who Applied?: Class of 2024 National Fellows Program Applicants

Every year, New America’s Fellows Program invests in bold thinkers—journalists, scholars, filmmakers, and public policy analysts—who generate big ideas to make an impact and spark new conversations about today’s most pressing challenges.

We carefully select our National Fellows through a rigorous, competitive selection process. We seek to support individuals who put forward far-reaching ideas through projects that draw on in-depth research, keen reporting, nuanced analysis, and a thoughtful storytelling approach.

For nearly 25 years, the Fellows Program has contributed to a deeper understanding of trends around timely topics, from climate change to criminal justice reform. Our fellows have gone on to write bestsellers, produce feature-length films, and win Pulitzer Prizes, MacArthur Foundation Fellowships, Emmys, Carnegie Fellowships, and National Magazine Awards. Visit our impact page to learn more.

An analysis of the keywords submitted with each application yielded the following cloud of the top 28 words used this year. The size of the word represents the frequency of use, and the color-coding of the word aligns broadly with the issue areas they represent.

This year, the top six keywords based on the frequency of use for the Class of 2024 applications are democracy (28), history (27), race (12), inequality (20), education (19), and human rights (19). This year we’ve seen the use of democracy jump dramatically, as race and history remain top keywords used over the years. The applicants’ keywords used over the years are as follows.

Candidates submit applications that speak to various pressing global and domestic issues every year. Given the annual application cycle, the program provides a unique insight into the types of issues journalists, academics, and other thought leaders are attuned to in that given year.

Over the past several years, the percentage of applications has been similarly spread across the six broad issue areas—society, justice, & human rights; science, technology, & innovation; foreign policy; domestic policy; identity; and journalism. However, between the Class of 2022 and the Class of 2024, the breakdown of the applications by issue area remained relatively the same. This year, there is a percentage decrease in projects focused on society, justice, & human rights as well as foreign policy, and, instead, an increase in projects focused on domestic policy. The chart below demonstrates that shift from the Classes of 2022 to 2024.

To date, the Fellows Program has supported the publication of nearly 150 books, 13 films, and several award-winning long-form reporting projects. While New America’s Fellows Program has an established reputation as a premier fellowship for nonfiction writers, every year, we continue to receive a range of new projects that vary in form and approach. With the acceptance of the Class of 2024, in addition to 12 books, we are supporting two film projects and one podcast project.

While approximately 80 percent of the Class of 2024 applicants submitted book projects, there continues to be a steady representation of non-book projects submitted. Approximately 6 percent of the applicants submitted a film project. Additionally, approximately 2 percent proposed a podcast project, and approximately 6 percent presented a multimedia approach to their proposed project.

Of the broader candidate pool, 228 applicants are based in the United States across 34 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and 55 are based abroad across 33 countries.

The U.S.-based applicants concentrated in New York (64), California (27), the District of Columbia (23), Massachusetts (14), and Texas (10). This is the same top-five list from last year. Internationally, applicants based in Canada (7), Brazil (4), and India (4) made up nearly 28 percent of the international candidate pool.

Applications distributed across state and country as follows:

While the Fellows Program attracts applicants from across professions and industries, most of our applicants are journalists (25 percent), followed by those working in academia (21 percent). The applicants by profession are as follows.

The age and gender breakdown for the applicant pool are as follows.

New America’s Fellows Program thanks New America’s board of directors, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, Emerson Collective, the Center for the Future of Arizona, and Arizona State University’s Future Security Initiative for their support this year.

We would also like to thank Sarah Baline, Naomi Morduch Toubman, Joe Wilkes, Kodiak Starr, and Jodi Narde for supporting the design and preparation of this report.