Who is in the Class of 2022 New America National Fellows?

This month, the New America Fellows Program announced the Class of 2022 National Fellows. This impressive group of 15 scholars, journalists, and poets was selected from a pool of nearly 350 applicants. Over the course of their fellowships, they’ll explore issues ranging from the rise of political extremism to the history of sex verification testing in sports

Keep reading to learn more about their work below.

Criminal Justice

Journalist Justine van der Leun, Emerson Collective Fellow, is writing a book that blends narrative stories with original data and research to explore the links between trauma, systemic failures, and the criminalization of women’s acts of survival from physical and sexual abuse. Her article co-published by the New Republic and the Appeal sets some of the groundwork for her research.

Emerson Collective Fellow Azam Ahmed, former New York Times bureau chief for Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, is writing about the nature of impunity in Mexico. His project is based in part on his powerful New York Times article about mother-turned-vigilante Miriam Rodríguez.

Education, Care, and Family

National Fellow Myra Jones-Taylor, chief policy officer of ZERO TO THREE, is writing about the evolution of childcare in American society. Formerly Connecticut's founding commissioner of early childhood, Myra has written about issues facing America’s youth, including a piece about her son’s grapple with his racial identity for the Atlantic.

National Fellow Anna Louie Sussman, a freelance journalist based in New York, is writing a book about the barriers people around the globe face in starting or growing families, based on her poignant article for the New York Times, “The End of Babies.”

Climate Change

Emerson Collective Fellow Abraham Lustgarten, senior reporter at ProPublica and a New York Times Magazine contributor, is working on a book about climate change and how it will force a global migration and demographic reorganization. He explored this issue in a 2020 article for New York Times Magazine.

Gender and Identity

National Fellow Benoit Denizet-Lewis, a professor at Emerson College and writer for New York Times Magazine, is writing a book about people undergoing significant identity changes. Much of Benoit’s past work focuses on questions of identity, including a 2019 piece for New York Times Magazine about queer conservatives.

Producer Rose Eveleth, National Fellow, has had an extensive career in audio production and podcasts. Her podcast TESTED will examine sex verification testing in sports throughout history. Her recent work includes a 30 for 30 Podcasts’ piece on a million-dollar baccarat heist.

Poverty and Inequality

Francesca Mari, National Fellow, is a freelance journalist and a professor at Brown University. Her previous reporting on the American housing crisis forms the basis of her Fellowship project. Francesca’s research explores why housing is so expensive and the consequences of financialization of housing on the lives of neighbors on a single block in Los Angeles.

History, Society, and Culture

Keisha N. Blain, National Fellow, is a historian and a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. An acclaimed author, Keisha is writing about the role of Black women in human rights struggles throughout history. Her recent article for Foreign Affairs sets the stage for deeper exploration of this topic.

New Arizona Fellow Sarah Kay is a poet and the founder and co-director of Project VOICE, an organization that encourages the use of poetry to educate and empower students. She is researching the experiences of her grandmother, a Japanese American who taught at a boarding school for Native American girls during World War II. Sarah’s poetry, including her poem “Mrs.,” featured in the New York Times, has received critical acclaim.

National Fellow Ellen D. Wu is a professor of history at Indiana University who has written extensively on race and immigration in U.S. history. She is writing a history of Asian Americans in social justice movements. Her 2020 article for Mother Jones was invaluable in understanding the nuances of the affirmative action debate for many Asian Americans.

Vice President of Policy and Strategy for Data for Progress Julian Brave NoiseCat, 11th Hour Fellow, writes extensively about environmentalism and indigenous life. His project will combine years of on-the-ground reporting with personal narrative to provide a definitive account of native experience in the United States and Canada. Read his story for Harper’s about the histories of genocide and climate disasters colliding at Wounded Knee.

Writer and professor Lauren Michele Jackson, National Fellow, is writing a history of America, focused on one core component: the physical and metaphorical backs our country was built on. Lauren has used her critical eye to analyze various facets of popular culture, including the problem of representing race in American animation, which she covered in a 2020 article for the New Yorker.

War, Security, and Terrorism

ASU Future Security Fellow Mike Giglio is a journalist and writer focused on war, terrorism, and national security. He is using his experiences reporting on civil wars in the Middle East to explore the rise of political extremism in the United States. His in-depth profile of the right wing militant group The Oathkeepers for the Atlantic offers a look at his research.

Janet Reitman, ASU Future Security Fellow, is a contributing writer for New York Times Magazine and has twice been a finalist for the National Magazine Award. She will write a narrative history of the country's increasingly violent and extremist drift from the 1990s to the current day. Her New York Times Magazine article about the failures of law enforcement to recognize this increase in extremism sets the stage for her forthcoming research.

We look forward to the year ahead and to seeing what the Class of 2022 accomplishes. For updates on our new fellows class and to see what our former fellows are up to, sign up for the Fifth Draft newsletter.