Two FAS Faculty Awarded Fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study

Jessica Lamont, Associate Professor of Classics, and David Knight, Assistant Professor of Black Studies and Sociology, were recently awarded fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in the for the 2026-27 academic year. This prestigious opportunity allows for focused research and the free and open exchange of ideas among an international community of scholars at one of the foremost centers for intellectual inquiry.

Lamont, whose fellowship will be in the School of Historical Studies conducts research focused on Ancient Greek social history, religion, magic, and medicine. Her projects at IAS include a study of magic inscriptions from Roman Greece (Corinth), in addition to healing practices and medical pluralism in Classical Greece.

During his fellowship in the School of Social Science, Knight will finish editing a book manuscript on the political movements launched by incarcerated people to redress the harms of the penal state. He will also work toward completing his next book project focused on carceral redress movements from a transnational perspective. 

"Jessica Lamont and David Knight are both pathbreaking scholars – Professor Lamont illuminating mysteries of the ancient past; Professor Knight envisioning the way toward a better future," said Marc Robinson, Dean of Humanities for the Yale Faculty of Arts and Sciences. "I'm thrilled that the IAS will be supporting their vital research."

Each year, IAS welcomes more than 250 of the most promising post-doctoral researchers and distinguished scholars from around the world to advance fundamental discovery as part of an interdisciplinary and collaborative environment. Visiting scholars are selected through a highly competitive process for their bold ideas, innovative methods, and deep research questions by the permanent Faculty—each of whom are preeminent leaders in their fields. Past IAS Faculty include Albert Einstein, Erwin Panofsky, John von Neumann, Hetty Goldman, George Kennan, and J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Located in Princeton, NJ, the Institute for Advanced Study was established in 1930. Today, research at IAS is conducted across four Schools—Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Social Science—to push the boundaries of human knowledge.

Among past and present scholars, there have been 37 Nobel Laureates, 49 of the 68 Fields Medalists, and 25 of the 29 Abel Prize Laureates, as well as MacArthur and Guggenheim fellows, winners of the Turing Award and the Wolf, Holberg, Kluge, and Pulitzer Prizes.