2026 Hovey Award
Applications open
Call for project entries:
James and Carol Hovey
EF Impact Award
Eisenhower Fellowships is issuing a call for project submissions for the 2026 Hovey Award to recognize a Fellow or group of Fellows for outstanding project achievement to drive positive impact.
This year’s James and Carol Hovey EF Impact Award, endowed by Trustee Jim Hovey and his wife Carol, will be presented at an Eisenhower Fellowships event in Fall, 2026.
“The Hovey Award underscores our strategic focus on generating positive impact through our programs,” said EF President George de Lama.
Established in 2023, the annual award highlights work that helps people live better lives by bringing about positive changes in Fellows’ professional fields or within their communities at the local, national or international level.
As in previous years, a distinguished selection committee of Fellows, Trustees and EF senior leadership will judge the entries and name the 2026 award recipient.
Eisenhower Fellowships presented the 2025 Hovey Award on Wednesday, November 12 at the Liberty View in Philadelphia. Physician Magaly Blas (Peru 2018), founder and director of the Mamás del Río (Mothers of the River) program, and former corporate executive Shridhar Venkat (India 2014), chief executive officer of the Akshaya Patra Foundation, accepted the 2025 Hovey Award and a $10,000 USD prize for their work to provide maternal health care in the Amazon River Basin and provide meals to impoverished schoolchildren in India, respectively.
Alfonso Vegara (Spain 1987) and Christopher Nowinski (USA 2011) received special citations for outstanding project achievement for their respective work in designing innovative, inclusive and resilient urban policies that have improved lives in nearly two dozen cities and for leading a global campaign to identify and prevent brain trauma in athletes, transforming the modern world of sports.
Applications open
Call for project entries:
The James and Carol Hovey
EF Impact Award
Eisenhower Fellowships is issuing a call for project submissions for the 2025 Hovey Award to recognize a Fellow or group of Fellows for outstanding project achievement to drive positive impact.
This year’s James and Carol Hovey EF Impact Award, endowed by Trustee Jim Hovey and his wife Carol, will be presented at an Eisenhower Fellowships event in Fall, 2025.
“The Hovey Award underscores our strategic focus on generating positive impact through our programs,” said EF President George de Lama.
The annual award highlights work that helps people live better lives by bringing about positive changes in Fellows’ professional fields or within their communities at the local, national or international level.
As in previous years, a distinguished selection committee of Fellows, Trustees and EF senior management will judge the entries and name the 2025 award recipient.
The most recent honorees, Colombian Fellows Camilo Fonseca Velasquez and Mariana Villamizar, received the 2024 Hovey Award and a $10,000 USD prize in New York last October for their work with RECON, a Colombian online platform that strengthens social entrepreneurship and peace-building opportunities in a country dealing with the consequences of the long-running war.
EF Chairman Dr. Robert M. Gates presented the inaugural Hovey Award in 2023 to Eisenhower Fellow Braimah Sulemana, Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa, for his groundbreaking journalism of accountability in Ghana.