Irvine, Calif., April 16, 2025 — The University of California, Irvine’s David S. Meyer has been selected for the 2025 class of Andrew Carnegie Fellows. The professor of sociology joins an exclusive cohort of 26 distinguished individuals nationwide chosen from over 300 nominees. Each will receive $200,000 for research aimed at understanding and addressing political polarization in the United States – the most generous stipend of its kind.

“I am pleased to congratulate Professor Meyer on being named a 2025 Andrew Carnegie Fellow,” said Hal Stern, UC Irvine provost and executive vice chancellor. “The funding from this highly regarded program will support his important study of social movements and protest and their role in democracy and public policy.”

The selection criteria for the prestigious honor prioritize the originality and potential impact of the research proposal, along with the scholar’s capacity to communicate the findings to a broad audience. Meyer will use the funding for a project that investigates how social movements and protest campaigns employ polarization to achieve political progress while also examining how polarization can undermine the ability of governments to effectively make policy.

“A world-renowned scholar of social movements and their role in political change, Professor Meyer will advance our understanding of protest, polarization and the possibility for positive change,” said Bill Maurer, dean of the School of Social Sciences. “His work is vital for our times and for our collective future. I am thrilled that the Carnegie Corp. is recognizing him with this award.”

Meyer is the author or editor of nine books, and he has published well over 100 articles, book reviews and reports that have shaped perspectives on social movements and contentious politics for several decades. His most recent work, How Social Movements (Sometimes) Matter, looks at the origins of social movements; how they contrast with revolutionary campaigns; and the influence of activists on politics, policy, culture and the way people live their lives.

His research has been funded by the Carnegie Corp., National Science Foundation, American Sociological Association, Urban Child Institute and UC Irvine Jack W. Peltason Center for the Study of Democracy, among others. In 2017, Meyer received the John D. McCarthy Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Scholarship of Social Movements and Collective Behavior from the University of Notre Dame’s Center for the Study of Social Movements, an honor recognizing his extraordinary achievements in research and the role he has played in mentoring successive generations of scholars.

Meyer’s new project will analyze both historical and contemporary protest movements to assess strategies that activists and authorities can use to manage the polarization resulting from successful movements and the divisions inherent to a vital democracy. His research will also offer recommendations to political organizers within and outside government.

“Activists do dramatic and disruptive things to get attention to their causes, but to achieve reform they need to persist and build broad alliances. I mean to understand how activists and authorities can navigate the balance between disruptive polarization and political responsiveness,” Meyer said. “It’s extremely encouraging to find support for this work, especially in this volatile moment in higher education and American politics more generally.”

The Carnegie Corporation of New York launched the Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program in 2015 to support scholarship and research in the social sciences and humanities that address important and enduring issues confronting our society. After a one-year pause in 2022-23, the program entered a second phase with a focus on developing a body of research around political polarization in the United States. Meyer joins other scholars in an effort to help Americans understand how and why our society has become so polarized and what can be done to strengthen social cohesion. Additional details about the Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program and the class of 2025 are available here.

About UC Irvine’s Brilliant Future campaign: Publicly launched on Oct. 4, 2019, the Brilliant Future campaign aims to raise awareness and support for the university. By engaging 75,000 alumni and garnering $2 billion in philanthropic investment, UC Irvine seeks to reach new heights of excellence in student success, health and wellness, research and more. The School of Social Sciences plays a vital role in the success of the campaign. Learn more at https://brilliantfuture.uci.edu/uci-school-of-social-sciences.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UC Irvine is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UC Irvine has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UC Irvine, visit www.uci.edu.

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