![\"A](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/smith-239x300.jpg\")
Smith, whose previous work includes the award-winning documentary films \u201cThe Long Goodbye: A Caregiver\u2019s Journey<\/a>\u201d and \u201cOne World, One People,\u201d has already been working on his current project for a year and a half, traveling the U.S. and documenting its people in photography.<\/p>\n \u201cMy perspective as a visual journalist is to see what our country looks like right now,\u201d Smith says. \u201cIt\u2019s a portrait of America at the time of its 250th <\/sup>birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n Visual media like photography and film offer a chance to examine complicated and emotionally charged subjects with unique nuance, Smith says, which is partly what drew him to the project.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a big believer in a wide variety of approaches,\u201d he says. \u201cHuman beings are complex, and photography and visual communication can bring these subtleties and details to the surface that might otherwise be overlooked.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith is just the second UConn faculty member to receive a Carnegie fellowship; Yonatan Morse, associate professor of political science, became the first in 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n Under the leadership of Carnegie president Dame Louise Richardson<\/a>, the 2025 class marks the second year of the Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program<\/a>\u2019s focus on building a body of research focused on political polarization. Carnegie will commit up to $18 million to this effort over the three-year period.<\/p>\n The winning proposals approach polarization through a wide array of disciplines and methods. Projects include analyzing the causes of the increasing political divides between men and women; assessing where Americans find common ground when it comes to their health; and understanding how partisan media, consultants, and entertainment industries are driving polarization for short-term profits, among other areas of research.<\/p>\n \u201cThrough these fellowships Carnegie is harnessing the unrivaled brainpower of our universities to help us to understand how our society has become so polarized,\u201d says Richardson. \u201cOur future grantmaking will be informed by what we learn from these scholars as we seek to mitigate the pernicious effects of political polarization.\u201d<\/p>\n