C&S has named 10 scholars as Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders (MEFL) for 2026. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, the MEFL Awards support junior faculty whose research focuses on contemporary history, politics, culture, and society, and who are committed to the creation of thriving campus communities for students and faculty.
The MEFL Award seeks to free the time of junior faculty working toward tenure so that they can both engage in and build support systems, professional networks, and scholarly groups that make their academic fields and campuses thrive. Each recipient receives a 12-month stipend of $20,000 while working toward tenure.
The exceptional early-career professors in this year’s class work in fields such as sociology, political science, and history. Awardees’ scholarship focuses on critical issues such as community building, activism, and artistic expression. In addition to pioneering research, they also take on additional campus responsibilities like mentoring, serving on advisory councils, working with student scholars, and giving additional talks and lectures. (See the full list of Fellows below.)
The 2026 class comes from a competitive applicant pool representing disciplines across the humanities. The final MEFL awardees were selected through an interview process by a selection committee of four former and current university leaders with various academic and research backgrounds.
Established in 2015, the program has now supported more than 90 junior faculty who represent the next generation of leaders and scholars in the humanities and social sciences and who are poised to play a significant role in shaping American higher education. Through their own work to make their fields and institutions reflective of our democracy, they are expanding young people’s understandings and frameworks for active roles in civil society.
For more information about the MEFL Award, eligibility requirements, and the next application cycle, visit https://cands.org/mellon-emerging-faculty-leaders-award/
Nhat-Dang Do, Trinity College | Political Science
Voices of Color: The State-Level Dynamics of Racial Minority Interest Group Lobbying, Hartford Voter Captains Project
Bianca N. Haro-Villa, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona | Sociology
A Critical Ethnography of Pomona, California
Aimee Hilado, The University of Chicago | Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice
Advancing Equity for Refugee Communities Through Research Partnerships and Practice
Ashley Howard, University of Iowa | History
More Than a Snapshot: Will Brown and the Violence of History
Jennifer Martinez-Medina, Willamette University | Politics, Policy, Law & Ethics
Cuentos Campesinxs: Farmworker Stories from AgriFronteras
Patricia D. Posey, The University of Chicago | Political Science
Fringe Economy, Fringe Democracy
Christofer A. Rodelo, University of California, Irvine | Chicano/Latino Studies
Spectacles of Relation: Performance, Race, and Early Histories of Latinidad
Rose Salseda, Stanford University | Department of Art & Art History
Muralism, A Cry for Justice: Chicano Art and the Cultivation of Humanity at Stanford University
Christine M. Slaughter, Boston University | Political Science
Black Civic Activism from 1994–2024
Omari Weekes, Queens College, CUNY | English
Lurid Affinities: Sex and the Spirit in Post-Civil Rights Black Literature
