The nine winners explore diverse topics, from intercommunal violence in the Balkans and Inca road infrastructure in Peru, through music and perceptions of time in the Middle Ages to the history of modern theme parks.
The Dan David Prize, the world's largest history prize, announced today the winners for 2026. The nine laureates, whose research illuminates various aspects of the human past through exceptional research, will each receive a $300,000 grant in recognition of their achievements and to support their future work. The laureates, who are in the early stages of their careers, are historians and archaeologists whose research spans the Americas, East Asia and Europe, and also deals with how phenomena that occurred in outer space have influenced human history.
This year marks five years since the Dan David Prize was relaunched as a prize focused on history and the study of the past. With the addition of the 2026 winners, the prize has been awarded to 45 scholars and professionals from six continents, and has provided over $13.5 million in support of groundbreaking work in the field of history.
The winners were submitted for the award through an open nomination process and selected by an international committee of experts. Members Search Committee This year, members from leading academic institutions include the University of Oxford, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Sciences Po, the Paris Institute of Political Science.
Nine early and mid-career researchers
"When we renewed the award five years ago, we did so in the belief that supporting historians at crucial moments in their careers can make a lasting difference," he said. Ariel David, Member of the award's board and son of Dan David, the award's founder"The results exceeded all our expectations. Past winners use grants to purchase essential research tools, produce films, and establish community programs that make history accessible to new audiences. This year's winners continue that tradition. Their research spans from the Balkans to Peru, from medieval cathedrals to modern theme parks. They challenge us to see our past, and our present, in a new light."
Dan David Award Winners for 2026
● Max Bergholz (Max Bergholz), Concordia University, Montreal – A historian of modern Europe, studying the dynamics of intercommunal violence, nationalism, and historical memory, primarily in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia. His first book, Violence as a Generative Force: Identity, Nationalism, and Memory in a Balkan Community (Cornell University Press, 2016), is a microhistorical study that explains how a peaceful multiethnic community in the town of Koln Vakof descended into horrific violence in 1941 that left more than 2,000 people dead. He is currently working on a new book, Our Truths: Violence and the Challenge of a Common Humanity, which examines how three different regimes and their local supporters in the Croatian town of Galinja have grappled with different aspects of the town’s violent past during 1941, from 1945 to the present.
●Roland Betancourt, University of California, Irvine – An art historian whose research spans the art and culture of the Byzantine Empire to modern popular culture. His early work on Byzantium dealt with the premodern history of race, queerness, and transgender identities. In his latest book, Disneyland and the Rise of Automation (Princeton University Press, 2026), Bettencourt examines how the aesthetics of modern amusement parks helped shape the assembly line in the second half of the 20th century, accustoming the public to its systems and methods.
●Matthew Champion, University of Melbourne – A historian of medieval and early modern societies, focusing on how people experienced, perceived, and organized the concept of time. His research emphasizes the need for complex and diverse histories of time perceptions—local and global, comparative, emotional, material, and sensory—with a particular emphasis on the contribution of images, objects, sounds, and music to understanding past societies. His book The Fullness of Time: Temporalities of the Fifteenth-Century Low Countries (University of Chicago Press, 2017) examines how the passage of time in the 15th-century Low Countries was regulated by the rhythms of human activity: from the musical life of cathedrals to the measurement of time by clocks and calendars, from the work habits of organized craftsmen to the religious practices of lay believers and religious orders.
● Howard Jiang (Howard Chiang), University of California, Santa Barbara – A historian of modern East Asian thought and culture, focusing on critical explorations of science, medicine, race, gender, and sexuality. Jiang is a pioneer in the field of Sinophone Studies, which offers a new framework for understanding regions such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Chinese-American communities—places where the term “Chinese” alone fails to capture the complexity and diversity of cultural expression. His first book, After Eunuchs: Science, Medicine, and the Transformation of Sex in Modern China (Columbia University Press, 2018), analyzes the history of sex change in China. His second book, Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific (Columbia University Press, 2021), offers a new paradigm for studying transgender history, in which geopolitics plays a central role.
●Dagomar Degroot, Georgetown University – An environmental historian who combines methods and evidence from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences in his research. His work focuses on understanding how environmental changes, on Earth and beyond, have shaped human history, and on making these insights accessible to the worlds of research, policy, and the general public. His first book, The Frigid Golden Age (Cambridge University Press, 2018), described how the Dutch Republic managed to adapt to climate change during the “Little Ice Age,” thus entering an economic and cultural golden age while other societies suffered crises. His new book, Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean: An Environmental History of Our Place in the Solar System (Harvard University Press, 2025), argues that actual and perceived changes in these environments have influenced human history in ways that have not yet been explored.
● Andrew Lipman (Andrew Lipman), Barnard College, Columbia University – Historian of early modern North America and the British Atlantic world. His research focuses on how indigenous peoples participated in the creation of an interconnected sea-dependent culture, with a focus on the northeastern region of America. His first book, The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast (Yale University Press, 2015), argued that the Puritan enterprise in New England was initially entangled in the power struggles of their Native neighbors and their Dutch rivals, and that the maritime culture of the Native peoples along the coast was a key factor in their survival after the invasion of their lands. His second book, Squanto: A Native Odyssey (Yale University Press, 2024), is the first comprehensive study of Squanto (or Tisquantum) – a Native interpreter who aided the early settlers, and whose deeds have become part of the popular mythology surrounding the American Thanksgiving holiday.
● Giancarlo Marcona (Giancarlo Marcone), University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) – An archaeologist whose research focuses on human settlements and long-term settlement patterns along the central coast of Peru. He studies the interplay between political and household economies in the late pre-Hispanic period, and examines how multi-ethnic groups coped with cultural diversity and climate change during the expansion of the Inca empire. He has also studied the continuity and change of infrastructure, in particular how the Inca road system influenced the modern road network as a result of historical and ongoing negotiations with local communities. Alongside his academic work, Marcona is active in the field of heritage conservation and promotes participatory heritage management models among disadvantaged non-indigenous communities in the region.
●Verena Meier, Heidelberg University and Technical University of Berlin – Historian of modern Germany and Europe, focusing on the genocide of the Sinti and Roma during the Nazi era. Her research examines the long history of antigypsyism in Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as its legacy after World War II. Her work is concerned with how institutions of power – from the police and the church to international networks of intellectuals – translate notions of social order into policy and practice, and how these processes shape inclusion, exclusion and boundaries of belonging in modern societies. In 2017, she was commissioned by the Central Council of the Sinti and Roma in Germany to write a report on “Protestantism and Antigypsyism”, which served as a basis for academic and civil discussions on the historical responsibility of the churches and their role in the discrimination and persecution of the Sinti and Roma, from the Reformation of Martin Luther to the present day.
● R. Isabela Morales – A public historian and scholar of slavery and emancipation in the United States, whose work centers on personal, local, and family stories as a window into understanding the broader landscape of race relations and slavery in 19th-century America. Her first book, Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom (Oxford University Press, 2022), recounts the story of the Townsend family, descendants of white plantation owner Samuel Townsend, who upon his death left almost all of his property to his five sons, four daughters, and two nieces—all slaves he owned. The book won the 2023 Frederick Douglass Book Award. In addition to her academic work, Morales has curated special exhibitions, produced oral history projects, and developed award-winning public programs for museums and universities in New York, New Jersey, and elsewhere, and most recently for the Stoutzberg-Sourland African American Museum..
Since the prize was relaunched in 2021, the $300,000 grants have enabled winners to develop ambitious new projects and make historical research accessible to wider audiences. As the prize marks its fifth year, past winners illustrate its significant impact. Anita Radini, a senior lecturer in archaeology at University College Dublin, used the grant to purchase a dedicated microscope that enables innovative research into microscopic remains in ancient artifacts, as well as to develop an educational activity kit that helps children better understand the natural world. Kim Welch, a professor at Vanderbilt University whose research reconstructs the lives of free and enslaved people of African descent, said the prize gave her “the space, time and resources to aim big” and track people’s life trajectories over time and space. Sahid Adriento, a professor of history and African and Diaspora studies at Florida International University, used the grant to pursue documentary filmmaking. The award funded extensive research in Nigeria and Europe, and also helped other African scholars develop skills in film. “Winning the award has allowed me to make the films I want and tell stories on my own terms,” he says.
The humanities in a time of cuts and political threats
"We live in a time when the humanities are subject to threats from political forces alongside ongoing cuts in research budgets. The prize gives the winners the freedom to engage in independent research without restrictions, and to continue to offer complex, profound and accurate insights into the human past," he said. Prof. Tim Cole, Historian and academic advisor for the Dan David Prize"This year's nine winners join a growing community of scholars whose collaborative work enriches the fabric of historical research through new research directions and creative interpretations of familiar historical landscapes."
The Dan David Prize was first established in 2001 by the late entrepreneur and philanthropist Dan David., with the aim of recognizing innovative and multidisciplinary work that has contributed to humanity. In 2021, the prize was relaunched with a focus on historical research, as an expression of the founder’s great love of history and archaeology. Today, the prize is awarded to early and mid-career researchers to help them realize their potential – and this at a time when historical knowledge and research are under attack, many university departments are facing closure, and budgets for research, archives, libraries and museums are being cut or eliminated altogether.
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