The American Academy in Rome (AAR) announced the recipients of the 2026–27 Rome Prize and Italian Fellows Program. The 31 individuals chosen for the cohort, stood out from a pool of 958 applicants, with an acceptance rate of just 3.03 percent.
In September, the architects, designers, preservationists, artists, and scholars selected will take their research and ideas to the AAR’s historic Roman compound designed by McKim, Meade, and White for periods ranging from five to ten months.
The Rome Prize annually recognizes accomplished artists and those engaged in scholarly endeavors across thirteen arts- and humanity-centered disciplines, including music, architecture, landscape architecture, historic preservation, literature, and history.
Rome Prize architecture winners for this cycle are Neeraj Bhatia, principal of The Open Workshop; and Jess Myers, an assistant Professor at the Syracuse University School of Architecture. Bhatia’s research-based practice focuses on collective living and the urban commons. AN published an interview with Bhatia, in 2024, following the publication of a book documenting his work.
Myers, a professor, is also described as an “urbanist whose practice includes work as an editor, writer, podcaster and curator.” AN spoke with her about the latest season of her podcast on cities, Here There Be Dragons. The episodes center on Odesa, Ukraine.
In the Rome Prize’s Historic Preservation and Conservation category, two individuals were awarded: Erica Avrami, a professor at Columbia GSAAP; and Ariel O’Connor, a conservator at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art.
Caroline Lavoie of Utah State University and landscape designer Daví Parente Schoen of CMG Landscape Architecture and founder of Out Of Office (design/research/craft) were recognized in the field of landscape architecture.
As in past years, the jury that weighed in on this year’s cohort used their expertise as historians, curators, artists, musicians to select the Rome Prize recipients. In the architecture and landscape architecture discipline the jury was chaired by Dorothée Imbert of the Knowlton School at Ohio State University. Imbert was joined by Leena Cho; Chris Cornelius; Christopher Hawthorne; Rashida Ng; and Ilaria Puri Purini, director of the AAR.
The full list of 2026–27 Rome Prize and Italian Fellows Program recipients can be found here.
