Three USC professors selected for Guggenheim Fellowship


Three USC professors are among 173 scholars chosen for Guggenheim Fellowships by the Board of Trustees of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Daniel Lidar, the Viterbi Professor of Engineering, was selected for his work on quantum annealing. Cheryl Mattingly, a professor jointly appointed to the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, also won a fellowship. Viet Thanh Nguyen, the Aerol Arnold Chair of English at USC, was recognized for his work in fiction writing.

The 173 winners were chosen out of approximately 3,000 applicants last Thursday.

Guggenheim Memorial Foundation President Edward Hirsch commended the selections for this year’s fellowships.

“It’s exciting to name 173 new Guggenheim Fellows,” Hirsch said in a press release. “These artists and writers, scholars and scientists, represent the best of the best. It’s an honor to be able to support these individuals to do the work they were meant to do.”

The 2017 Guggenheim Fellows come from 49 different disciplines, 64 different academic institutions and universities, 27 states and the District of Columbia, in addition to three Canadian provinces. Sixty-eight of the recipients are either adjunct faculty at universities or have no academic affiliation.

The Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has granted more than $350 million in fellowships to over 18,000 recipients since 1925.

The Fellowship program garners donations from friends, trustees, former Fellows and other foundations.