Grawemeyer Awards

08/17/2026

The new director of the Grawemeyer Award in Psychology is Yara Mekawi, an associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Louisville. A licensed clinical psychologist, she directs the Challenging Ongoing Legacies Of Racism (COLOR) lab. Dr. Mekawi’s research focuses on the science of racism and anti-racism.

08/10/2026

Thirty-four people have won the Grawemeyer Award in Religion since E. P. Sanders won first in 1990. The youngest living winner is Candida Moss, who won in 2026 for God's Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible (Little, Brown, 2024). Moss is the Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham.

08/03/2026

Forty-four people have won the Grawemeyer Award in Education since Bertrand Schwartz won first in 1989. The youngest living winner is Kelly Nielsen, who won with Laura T. Hamilton in 2024 for Broke: The Racial Consequences of Underfunding Public Universities (University of Chicago Press, 2021). Nielsen is Director of the Center for Research + Evaluation at UC San Diego.

07/30/2026

Joshua W. Busby, winner of the 2026 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, recently wrote “America’s EV Reckoning” for The Wire China. “China is miles ahead of most U.S. automakers,” write Busby. “Consumers are going to want to get their hands on what Chinese consumers already are enjoying.”

Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policy sealed China off from the outside world for almost three years. Joshua Busby, a Biden-era climate advisor to the Pentagon and professor at the University of Texas at Austin, recently returned from the second of two post-pandemic tours of Chinese electric vehicle fact...

07/23/2026

The New York Review recently published “The Grain of the Note” by Philip Clark, a review of four albums by Australian composer Liza Lim, winner of the 2026 Grawemeyer Award in Music Composition:

The carnyx is an ancient bronze trumpet, once used by Iron Age warriors who relied on its otherworldly blood-curdling cry to fill their opponents with the

07/13/2026

Earlier this year, neurobiologist James McGaugh, winner of the 2015 Grawemeyer Award in Psychology, reflected on his early years at UC Irvine, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary: https://news.uci.edu/2026/05/18/building-uc-irvine/.

07/08/2026

Kelly Brown Douglas, who won the 2023 Grawemeyer Award in Religion for RESURRECTION HOPE: A FUTURE WHERE BLACK LIVES MATTER (Orbis, 2021), reflected on Abraham Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech in the June 2026 issue of THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY.

06/29/2026

In August, Harvard University Press will publish A CHANCE TO SOLVE THEIR OWN PROBLEMS: INSIDE THE NEW METHODS SEEKING TO REMAKE PUBLIC SCHOOLS by Jal Mehta et al. Mehta, the Gregory R. Anrig Professor of Educational Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, won the Grawemeyer Award in Education in 2021 with Sara Fine, who directs the San Diego Teacher Residency at the High Tech High Graduate School of Education.

06/16/2026

Berlin’s Komische Oper recently performed Orlando, by Olga Neuwirth, the winner of the 2022 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition.

The German premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s Orlando at the Komische Oper cements it as a postmodern grand opéra – for better or for worse.

05/28/2026

Click here to watch Joshua Busby, winner of 2026 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, lecture at the University of Louisville: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vPuBZN4jD4.