Two University of Iowa faculty members received Guggenheim fellowships, the Guggenheim foundation announced Wednesday.

David Gompper, professor of composition in the UI School of Music, and Glenn Penny, professor of history, were among the 175 writers, scholars, artists, and scientists nationwide chosen for the award from almost 3,000 applicants.

Gompper will use the fellowship to take a full year off from teaching to focus solely on writing a piano concerto, a triple concerto, and an orchestral piece called Starburst for Naxos Records, the world’s leading classical music label. 

“Being selected confirms that my many recent projects have paid off. This award is certainly a step in that direction, and in the direction of being able to navigate or be recognized on an international level,” says Gompper.

Penny is interested in transcultural migrants and what their communities can tell us about how we narrate national histories. His current work focuses on the habits of German migrants to Guatemala, both to rethink common assumptions about foreign actors in Latin America and to encourage fellow scholars to move beyond colonial questions when studying Germans abroad. It is one part of his more general effort to move the entire field of German history toward a more comprehensive understanding of German interactions with the world and to gain a better understanding of migrants’ roles in shaping world history. His project is titled, “Beyond Colonial Questions: Being German in Guatemala from the 1880s through the 1980s.”

“I am delighted by the news,” says Penny. “The Guggenheim fellowship will allow me to complete a set of projects I have been working on for over a decade.”

Guggenheim fellowships are awarded to individuals who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts. During the rigorous selection process, applicants’ work is reviewed and ranked by artists or experts in their respective fields.

In all, 53 scholarly disciplines and artistic fields, 75 academic institutions, 31 states and the District of Columbia, and two Canadian provinces are represented in this year’s class of fellows, who range in age from 29 to 82.

“A Guggenheim fellowship has always offered practical assistance, helping fellows do their work, but for many of the new fellows, it may be a lifeline at a time of hardship, a survival tool as well as a creative one,” says Edward Hirsch, president of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. “As we grapple with the difficulties of the moment, it is also important to look to the future. The artists, writers, scholars, and scientific researchers supported by the fellowship will help us understand and learn from what we are enduring individually and collectively, and it is an honor for the foundation to help them do their essential work.”

A complete list of 2020 fellows can be found on the foundation’s website at gf.org.