American Academy In Rome Announces 2023-24 Winners Of The Rome Prize

The latest winners of the highly prestigious Rome Prize were announced today by the American Academy in Rome (AAR). The Rome Prize is awarded annually to American artists and scholars for research and work in the arts and humanities. The 2023–24 Rome Prize winners will be officially recognized at the Arthur and Janet C. Ross Rome Prize Ceremony, held on April 24 in the Great Hall at Cooper Union in New York.

For 2023-24, there are 36 recipients of the Rome Prize, each of whom will receive a stipend, workspace, and room and board at the Academy’s eleven-acre campus on the Janiculum Hill in Rome, starting in September 2023. The stipend is $16,000 for a half-term and $30,000 for a full-term period of work in residence.

The Rome Prize is awarded in eleven disciplines: ancient studies, architecture, design, historic preservation and conservation, landscape architecture, literature, medieval studies, modern Italian studies, music composition, Renaissance and early modern studies, and visual arts. This year’s awardees were selected from 988 applications.

“This class of Rome Prize winners once again includes some of America’s most gifted scholars and artists,” said AAR President and CEO Mark Robbins, who will be stepping down from that role in July. “Their fellowship experience, living and working in a multidisciplinary community in Rome, has an enduring impact individually and on the wider intellectual and cultural sphere.”

This year’s Rome Prize winners are:

Ancient Studies

Kate Meng Brassel, University of Pennsylvania; Mary C. Danisi, Cornell University; Christopher Erdman, University of California, Santa Barbara; Mary-Evelyn Farrior, Columbia University; Ryan Haecker, London Jesuit Centre.

Architecture

César A. Lopez, University of New Mexico; Ajay Manthripragada, Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Design

David Weeks, David Weeks Design, Brooklyn; Elizabeth Whelan, Elizabeth Whelan Design, Brooklin, Maine.

Historic Preservation and Conservation

Aaron Cayer, University of New Mexico; Emily B. Frank, New York University.

Landscape Architecture

Miranda E. Mote, University of Pennsylvania; Lauren Stimson, Partner in STIMSON, Princeton, Mass.

Literature

Elif Batuman, Barnard College, Columbia University; Erica Hunt, Brown University; Katie Kitamura, New York University; Shruti Swamy, San Francisco.

Medieval Studies

Christopher Bunura, Institute for Advanced Studies; Dov Honick, University of Notre Dame.

Modern Italian Studies

Jessica L. Harris, St. John’s University; Erica Moretti, Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York, Sara L. Petrilli-Jones, Yale University.

Musical Composition

Baldwin Giang, University of Chicago; Kate Soper, Smith College; Anthony Vine, Greenberg Music School.

Renaissance and Early Modern Studies

Gabriella L. Johnson, University of Delaware; Nhung Tuyet Tran, University of Toronto; Anne L. Williams, University of Hong Kong.

Visual Arts

Kamrooz Aram, Brooklyn, NY; Nao Bustamante, University of Southern California; Mike Cloud, Northwestern University; Zachery Fabri, Brooklyn, NY; Jeanine Oleson, Rutgers University; Estefania Puerta Grisales, Burlington, Vermont; Dread Scott, School of Visual Arts.

In addition to the Rome Prizes, awards were made in three other categories.

• The inaugural Tsao Family Rome Prize was awarded to John Delury of Yonsei University for research in the history of ideas and cultural exchange between the East and West.
• The AAR also announced three Italian Fellowships, through which Italian artists and scholars join their American counterparts at the Academy. They were Nicola Barbagli, Florence; Fatma Buck, Turin; and Sabrina Morreale, co-founder of the Lemonot Studio located in London.
• Finally, the winner of the Terra Foundation Affiliated Fellowship for a Chicago-Based Visual Artist was Lan Tuazon of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Founded in 1894 under the leadership of American architect Charles F. McKim, the American Academy in Rome was chartered by an Act of Congress in 1905. In addition to McKim, other early supporters included Harvard College, The Carnegie Foundation, J.P. Morgan, The Rockefeller Foundation, and William K. Vanderbilt, The academy is supported today by private donations and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.