Among the nation’s most accomplished thinkers, four University of Michigan scholars have earned a place in the distinguished ranks of Guggenheim Fellows, a recognition of extraordinary achievement and future promise.
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation awarded 223 fellowships to recipients throughout the United States and Canada, chosen from nearly 5,000 applicants. This year’s U-M recipients are:
- Regina Baucom, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, LSA.
- Daniel Forger, Robert W. and Lynn H. Browne Professor of Science and professor of mathematics, LSA; and research professor of computational medicine and bioinformatics, Medical School.
- Raven Garvey, associate professor of anthropology in LSA, and associate curator, Museum of Anthropological Archaeology.
- Don Moynihan, J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
Since its founding in 1925, the foundation has awarded nearly $450 million in fellowships to more than 19,000 Fellows. Each fellow receives a monetary stipend to pursue independent work at the highest level under “the freest possible conditions.”
“Our new class of Guggenheim Fellows is representative of the world’s best thinkers, innovators and creators in art, science and scholarship,” said Edward Hirsch, president of the Guggenheim Foundation. “We are honored to support their visionary contributions.”
LSA Dean Rosario Ceballo said the three LSA professors (Baucom, Forger and Garvey) have “devoted their careers to generating new knowledge, pushing the boundaries of discovery and innovation, and finding solutions to bold challenges impacting our society.”
“Their research and engagement illustrate the power of the liberal arts and sciences, and I am delighted to see their names listed among the world’s foremost thinkers, innovators, and creators in art, science, and scholarship,” said Ceballo, professor of psychology, and of women’s and gender studies.
Regina Baucom
Baucom’s fellowship project is titled “Lessons from weeds: How to resist and persist in times of stress.” Over the course of her career, she has studied weeds — defined as plants growing where they do not belong — from the perspective of evolution and genetics, examining how herbicide-driven selection shapes rapid adaptation in weedy species.
Over the last five years, in collaboration with lab members and close colleagues, including Shu-Mei Chang and Tia-Lynn Ashman, Baucom has helped develop a new framework that moves beyond viewing herbicide use and resistance solely as a management problem.
The work demonstrates how herbicide application affects plant traits, plant-pollinator relationships and broader community dynamics, and reveals that herbicide-resistant genotypes can experience different interactions with insects compared to susceptible plants. Together, these findings reframe herbicide as an ecological driver with broad, cascading eco-evolutionary consequences.
In the coming year, she aims to expand these ideas further by connecting the evolutionary dynamics of weedy plants to food security, sustainability and biodiversity conservation. This broader framing shifts weed evolution from a management-focused discipline toward one that is more integrative, ecological and publicly engaged, she said.
“I am elated, surprised and humbled to have been named a Guggenheim Fellow,” Baucom said, noting that the fellowship will allow her to extend her current sabbatical and dedicate focused time to developing a popular science book on these themes.
Daniel Forger
Forger learned about his fellowship just 15 minutes before class.
“I was able to celebrate in the best possible way — by heading straight into the classroom and hearing creative ideas from Michigan students about the intersection of mathematics, music and neuroscience,” he said.
Forger’s project uses applied mathematics to better understand music. He has been fascinated by time series, from wearable data that can help students perform better to neuronal signals that reveal fatigue. This work focuses on methods that are mathematically deep, not off-the-shelf algorithms, but approaches that integrate deep domain knowledge.
By combining insights from music theory, such as modal and tonal counterpoint, with large-scale brain simulation, Forger aims to understand these works better while developing new mathematics along the way.
“For me, this work comes full circle,” said Forger, who is also a virtuoso organist and an associate of the American Guild of Organists. “The University of Michigan is an extraordinary place, in large part because of its interdisciplinary spirit.
“Centers like the Michigan Center for Interdisciplinary and Applied Mathematics foster creative, cross-disciplinary scientific endeavors. This environment, where we break down rather than build up disciplinary walls and actively encourage collaboration across fields, helps faculty receive recognitions like the Guggenheim and helps students go on to become leaders and the best.”
Raven Garvey
Garvey’s project aims to make the “invisible” force of wind legible in the human past. Wind is notoriously difficult to study through traditional archaeological methods, she says, yet it surely shaped human experience in places like Patagonia, where she conducts fieldwork.
Her project combines approaches from archaeology and engineering to open new theoretical and methodological ground. It also considers whether deep-time human responses to wind can offer insights for the present, as modern communities face rising winds and intensifying storms.
“Honestly, I was stunned,” Garvey said about being named a fellow. “Like a kid waking up to 2 feet of snow, but having to hear the news twice before fully believing school was cancelled. Then came a flood of excitement and gratitude, feeling incredibly lucky to get to do work I love.”
The fellowship, she said, is both a tremendous affirmation of the (often unconventional) path she has taken and a practical opportunity to think boldly, work at a larger scale, and push her work in new directions.
“Specifically, it will help me advance my research on wind as a force that shaped past humans’ lives, landscapes and technologies,” Garvey said. “This work is inherently interdisciplinary and will benefit enormously from the kind of freedom and visibility a Guggenheim Fellowship provides.”
Don Moynihan
Moynihan’s project seeks to explain how the Trump administration’s management of public services is affecting both the government’s ability to deliver key services and meet democratic accountability.
“I’m incredibly excited and a little stunned,” he said. “It is an amazing honor.”
As a scholar of public administration, Moynihan said it’s rare for this type of research on the inner workings of government to receive such an extraordinary honor.
“I think the award reflects the growing recognition of how critical a functional government is to society, and to a healthy democracy,” he said, noting that his research and public writing meet an obligation not just to criticize, but also to provide solutions for American governance.Originally published in The University Record on April 15, 2026