2 Princeton Professors Win MacArthur 'Genius' Grants Worth $800K

PRINCETON, NJ — Two Princeton University professors have been named 2026 MacArthur Fellows, an award often called a "genius grant."

Ellora Derenoncourt, an economist, and Elizabeth Ellis, a historian, are among 20 fellows announced by the MacArthur Foundation. Each will receive $800,000 over five years.

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Derenoncourt, 39, an associate professor of economics, joined Princeton in 2021 and is the founding director of the university's Program for Research on Inequality.

The foundation honored her for "uncovering the historical roots of racial disparities in wealth and economic mobility in the United States." She builds new datasets and uses major historical events as starting points for her research.

Her work includes a study of the Great Migration, when millions of Black Americans moved from the South to Northern cities. She found that the first generation saw some gains, but later generations did worse. She links that to backlash against the new arrivals and to city neighborhoods losing investment.

She also found that the 1966 expansion of the federal minimum wage explains about 20 percent of the drop in the Black-white earnings gap during the Civil Rights era. That's nearly as much as anti-discrimination laws of the time.

Her 2024 paper, "Wealth of Two Nations," traces the racial wealth gap in the U.S. from 1860 to 2020.

"There are many types of economic disparities that appear deeply entrenched," Derenoncourt said in remarks shared on the Princeton University website. "I see much of my work as hunting through the historical record to see when there was a change in inequality and what drove the change."

She said she is excited to build on that work during the fellowship and to "foster connections with the next generation of scholars interested in studying economic inequality."

Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber called her "an exceptional economist and a leading voice in her field."

Ellis, 38, is an associate professor of history who joined Princeton in 2022. She studies Native American history and Indigenous politics and diplomacy in early North America. Her faculty profile lists her book, "The Great Power of Small Nations: Indigenous Diplomacy in the Gulf South."

The 2022 book looks at small Native nations in what is now Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Ellis shows how they welcomed refugees, built shared settlements and formed flexible alliances. That helped them limit the power of European settlers for much of the 18th century. The book has won awards from several organizations, including the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association and the Western History Association.

The foundation also noted that her work helps show why some nations have struggled to win federal recognition, which often depends on treaty ties with the U.S. government.

Ellis is Peewaalia and an enrolled citizen of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma. She said the fellowship will support two projects: one on Native American iconography from the years 1000 to 1800, and one on the history of the Peoria Tribe.

"It is deeply moving to me that people are seeing and understanding why the stories we tell about Native people matter and why they matter so much to the present — not just for Native people, but for all of us who are in this continent," Ellis said on the University website.

Eisgruber called her "an extraordinary historian who has enriched Native American and Indigenous studies at Princeton and well beyond."

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