Kirstin Valdez Quade ’02 and amara tabor-smith were announced as 2024 Guggenheim Fellows last week. Valdez Quade, a writer and associate professor of English, was awarded a fellowship for fiction, while tabor-smith is a fellow in choreography.

Before she became an associate professor in 2023, Valdez Quade was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford from 2009 to 2011. Her novels and short stories take inspiration from her home state New Mexico’s desolate terrain and Hispanic Catholic history, she told the Stanford Report.

Valdez Quade said she is “incredibly grateful to the Guggenheim Foundation for this support and especially for the faith in my work.” The Fellowship provides funding to mid-career academics to expand their practice.

This year, the Guggenheim awarded 188 fellowships across 52 disciplines, ranging from translation to dance studies. Valdez Quade and tabor-smith join a cohort of Stanford scholars awarded the Fellowship each year, including three from 2023: Abraham Verghese, Gabrielle Hecht and Euan Ashley.

tabor-smith is an Oakland-based choreographer and performance maker, as well an artist-in-residence at the Theater and Performing Studies (TAPS) department and the Institute for Diversity in the Arts (IDA). 

“I am so deeply humbled and grateful to have my creative research and practice supported through this fellowship alongside such an incredible group of artists, writers, scientists and scholars,” tabor-smith told the Stanford Report. “It comes at such a critical juncture for my creative practice as I move in new directions and uncharted territory with my latest project and research.”

tabor-smith’s practice centers around advocacy for race, gender and environmental justice issues through Yoruba spiritual rituals. She plans to use the fellowship to speak with communities across the United States, West Africa and the Caribbean about responding to climate catastrophes.

The Daily has reached out to Valdez Quade and tabor-smith for comment.