Linda May Han Oh Receives Guggenheim Fellowship

Linda May Han Oh, an associate professor in Berklee’s Bass Department and the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, has been awarded a 2026 Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition for her proposed work Dreams of Knowing, an interdisciplinary project that bridges science and music by transforming scientific data into sound. The project will turn patterns from neuroscience and climate science into rhythm and harmony, and will be realized through recordings, multimedia performances, and community engagement initiatives that bring together musicians, visual artists, and scientists.

Several Berklee professors have received Guggenheim fellowships in recent years. Berklee College of Music faculty John Yao and Yoon-Ji Lee were recipients in 2025 and 2024, respectively, while Boston Conservatory at Berklee associate professor Eun Young Lee earned the honor in 2023 and former professor Jonathan Bailey Holland was recognized in 2022. College and Conservatory faculty member Marti Epstein was honored with a fellowship in 2020.

“Receiving this fellowship has been a huge honor, considering all the past and present fellows,” said Oh. “I'm so grateful to be able to create this work and be a part of this community.”

Born in Malaysia and raised in Perth, Western Australia, Oh has established herself as a prominent voice in both the bass and the composition worlds. She has performed and recorded with artists such as Pat Metheny, Kenny Barron, Joe Lovano, Dave Douglas, and Terri Lyne Carrington, and was named Bassist of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association in 2018 and 2019. She has released multiple albums as a bandleader, and has written for film, as well as large and small ensembles. The Wall Street Journal has praised her work, noting that her wide-ranging style and skilled improvisation place her among today's standout young jazz artists.

Oh joins the 101st class of Guggenheim Fellows, spanning 223 distinguished individuals working across 55 disciplines. Since its establishment in 1925, the Guggenheim Fellowship program has been a significant source of support for artists and scholars in the humanities, social sciences, and research sciences. The Foundation has awarded nearly $450 million in fellowships to more than 19,000 fellows, including Nobel laureates, winners of the Pulitzer Prize, Fields medalists, poets laureate, members of the national academies, and more.