New America Announces Fellows Class of 2027

WASHINGTON, DC (August 25, 2026) — New America announced today the Fellows Class of 2027, a dynamic 14-member cohort of journalists, filmmakers, multidisciplinary artists, and scholars aligned with one common purpose: to bring big, bold ideas to life. The full roster can be found here and short biographies are below.  

With past projects that include the 2026 Pulitzer Prize–winning book There Is No Place for Us by Brian Goldstone, and the #1 New York Times bestselling book How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith, the New America Fellows Program has supported transformative, issue-driven nonfiction storytelling on the defining challenges of our time for more than 25 years.

The incoming cohort’s projects investigate themes ranging from borders and migration, land and labor, the courts and fortunes that shape public life, to the long aftermath of violence—through books, documentary films, and a podcast series. As part of the fellowship, the new class will receive financial support, professional development, and access to New America’s network of policy program experts, former Fellows, and industry leaders in publishing and media. 

A solutions-oriented, nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, DC, New America has invested over $5.8 million in the last decade to support Fellows’ projects. Directed by Awista Ayub, with Peter Bergen as Vice President, the New America Fellows Program has been an intellectual home to more than 300 Fellows, resulting in the publication of 183 books, the production of 19 feature-length documentary films, two podcast series, and several award-winning longform reporting projects. 

“Our Fellows represent the heart of New America’s mission—to nurture bold thinkers whose nonfiction work cuts through noise, challenges status-quo thinking, and offers tangible pathways toward a more equitable society,” said Awista Ayub, Senior Director of the New America Fellows Program. “Over the past 25 years, this program has established itself as an unparalleled launchpad for ideas that change public conversation and policy alike. As we prepare to welcome our newest class, we remain deeply committed to investing in rigorous, issue-driven storytelling that addresses the most urgent systemic issues facing our country and our world.”

“Whether examining the complexities of twenty-first-century forced migration and displacement, postpartum psychosis, or social media addiction litigation, our Fellows do not just analyze problems—they spark national dialogue and drive real-world change,” added Paul E. Butler, New America’s Interim CEO and President & Chief Transformation Officer. “We are thrilled to introduce and welcome this exceptional group of ambitious storytellers to New America.”

To learn more about the New America Fellows Program or explore past projects, visit newamerica.org/fellows.

New America’s Fellows Program thanks its board of directors and ASU’s Future Security Initiative for their support this year.

Class of 2027 New America Fellows

Zeshawn Ali is a nonfiction filmmaker and organizer whose feature documentary Two Gods was a New York Times Critics’ Pick and aired on PBS’s Independent Lens. He is currently directing the film Highways, which won the BlackStar Pitch Prize and is being executive produced by Multitude Films.

Ellen Barry is a journalist at The New York Times whose reporting has earned a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting and three Pulitzer finalist nominations. She is currently writing A Woman, Falling, a nonfiction book about postpartum mental health, postpartum psychosis, and the trial of Lindsay Clancy.

Lucas Bessire is a writer and anthropologist whose book Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Nonfiction. He is currently writing a new book for Doubleday that explores masculinity, climate change, and truth on the High Plains through memoir, environmental history, and ethnography.

Dario Calmese is an artist, writer, and founder whose work explores culture through photography, film, and institutional design. In 2020, he became the first Black photographer to shoot a cover for Vanity Fair in the magazine’s 106-year history with his landmark portrait of Viola Davis. He is currently producing Citizen Nation, a creative audio storytelling initiative that examines how culture, design, and narrative can reimagine citizenship for the twenty-first century.

Olivia Carville is an investigative reporter at Bloomberg whose reporting on the digital world has exposed safety failures at major technology companies and earned duPont-Columbia and George Polk Awards. She also co-hosted a podcast on the impact of deepfake pornography and helped produce the Emmy Award-winning documentary Can’t Look Away: The Case Against Social Media based on her reporting. She is working on a book that examines litigation related to social media addiction.

Stephanie Clifford is an award-winning investigative journalist and bestselling author whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and other leading publications. She is currently writing a biography of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. for Bloomsbury and is the author of the novels The Farewell Tour and Everybody Rise, a New York Times bestseller.

Simona Foltyn is an award-winning investigative journalist and filmmaker whose reporting on conflict and underreported stories across the Middle East has earned a duPont-Columbia Award, Kurt Schork Award, and Peabody nomination. She is a Special Correspondent for PBS NewsHour and has produced documentaries for the BBC, Channel 4, and Al Jazeera English. She is working on a book that investigates the unsolved murder of a prominent Iraqi activist.

Linda Kinstler is a nonfiction writer and scholar of law and intellectual history whose first book, Come to This Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends, won a 2023 Whiting Award in Nonfiction and was shortlisted for the Wingate Prize for Jewish literature. She is currently writing Acts of Oblivion: A History of Forgetting, a book exploring the history of legal oblivion and its implications for justice, memory, and society.

Josh Kun is a cultural historian, writer, and curator whose work explores the arts and politics of cultural connection and has earned a MacArthur Fellowship, Berlin Prize, and American Book Award. He is currently writing Beats Across Borders: A Migrant Songbook, a narrative nonfiction book exploring how music shapes experiences of migration, displacement, and belonging.

Evan Osnos is an author and staff writer at The New Yorker whose books include Age of Ambition, winner of the National Book Award, and The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich, a New York Times bestseller and PEN America Literary Award finalist. He is currently writing a narrative nonfiction book for Scribner about the West Virginia Mine Wars and the forces of labor, industry, and power that shaped this pivotal chapter of American history.

Enrique Pedráza-Botero is a Colombian filmmaker and visual artist whose work examines how systems of power, technology, and capital shape everyday life and collective imagination. He currently leads the Documentary Film in the Public Interest initiative at Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center and is developing the documentary series S.E.C.T.O.R. B, which explores the expansion of border security infrastructures across the United States.

Nathan Thrall is an American writer living in Jerusalem whose book A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy won the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction and was an international bestseller translated into more than thirty languages. He is currently writing a new work of narrative nonfiction set in Israel/Palestine that explores questions of history, morality, belonging, and identity through the lives of young Israelis.

Abraham (Abie) Troen is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, IDA, Bertha, and Doc Society, and screened at festivals including Tribeca, DOC NYC, and IDFA. He is currently directing his second feature-length documentary, Family Pictures. His previous films include Just Sing, Finding Home, and ’Til Kingdom Come.

Elizabeth M. Webb is an artist and filmmaker whose work explores race, identity, migration, and the legacies of racial passing through documentary and visual practice. She is currently directing her first feature documentary, Artificial Horizon, which examines the intertwined racial and ecological histories of a former plantation landscape in eastern Alabama.