Adapted from a story by the Office of Communications on the University homepage.
Elizabeth Ellis (History) has been awarded a 2026 MacArthur Fellowship, informally known as a MacArthur “genius” grant. She is one of two Princeton faculty members to receive the award in 2026.
The fellowships recognize individuals who have demonstrated “exceptional originality in and dedication to their creative pursuits,” according to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Ellis, an associate professor of history, is a scholar of early North American and Native American history. Her research focuses on Indigenous politics, diplomacy, migration and borderlands, as well as early Native American art and iconography.
In its announcement, the MacArthur Foundation recognized Ellis for scholarship that “sheds light on the different strategies Native nations used to maintain their livelihoods and wield influence among European settlers,” and in particular her “portrait of alternative conceptions of nationhood among small Indigenous tribes.”
Ellis’ 2022 book, “The Great Power of Small Nations: Indigenous Diplomacy in the Gulf South,” tells the stories of the smaller Native American nations that shaped the development of present-day Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The book has received awards from the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, the Western History Association, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, and the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, among other organizations.
“Elizabeth Ellis is an extraordinary historian who has enriched Native American and Indigenous studies at Princeton and well beyond,” President Christopher L. Eisgruber said. “Her renowned research on lesser-known histories of Indigenous politics and diplomacy in early North America shines an important light on the power and resilience of Native and Indigenous peoples throughout history.”
Ellis joined Princeton’s Department of History in 2022. She is also affiliated with the Effron Center for the Study of America and teaches courses that are part of the new undergraduate minor in Native American and Indigenous studies. Ellis was a Behrman Faculty Fellow in the Humanities Council from 2023-2025.
