Kosuke Imai, Professor of Government and Statistics, has been awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship for research, joining the ranks of more than 19,000 Fellows honored since 1925.
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, now in its 99th year, has recognized and awarded monetary prizes to the 2024 class of trail-blazing fellows, all of whom were chosen based on prior career achievement and exceptional promise.
Imai, in a statement to The Harvard Crimson, pointed out the motivational effect of being selected for the fellowship. He said: “I feel very encouraged to pursue the research projects that I put in my proposal, so I’m really excited about that.”
Imai said he plans to use the fellowship to continue his research on “developing computational algorithms to detect gerrymandering in legislative redistricting.”
“In some states, the politicians draw congressional district lines in a way that favors a certain group of voters who support a particular party or certain racial groups. My collaborators and I developed a computational algorithm that basically tries to detect some of these attempts to do gerrymandering, so I’m planning to apply this to look at racial gerrymandering.”
Alongside Imai, four other Harvard professors were also honored – including Tracy K. Smith ’92, a professor of English and African and African American Studies; Carola E. Suárez-Orozco, a professor in residence at the Harvard Graduate School of Education; James D. Wood, a professor of English; and Tiya A. Miles ’92, a professor of History.
The Board of Trustees at the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced their appointment of 188 Guggenheim Fellowships to a distinguished and diverse group of culture-creators last week (04/11). All Fellows, spanning across 52 disciplines, were chosen from a pool of almost 3,000 applicants and put through a rigorous application and peer review process.
As established in 1925 by founder Senator Simon Guggenheim, each fellow receives a monetary stipend to pursue independent work at the highest level under “the freest possible conditions” as explained in an official statement released by the foundation.
To see the comprehensive list of new Fellows, visit www.gf.org, and read the full Harvard Crimson article here.