Welcome 2026-27 duPont Fellows

We are pleased to announce our 2026-27 duPont-Columbia Awards Fellows. Sophie McDougall and Sebastian Wright are joining the team while they pursue their graduate studies at Columbia Journalism School. Congratulations to Sophie and Sebastian.

Sophie McDougall, from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is a full-time M.S. student at Columbia Journalism School. She spent the past four years studying Media, Culture, Communications, and Journalism at New York University, where she served as the Managing Editor of the undergraduate journalism publication, reported audio stories for WNYU radio, and wrote long-form print pieces surrounding history, culture, and family – from Oahu, Hawaii to Little Rock, Arkansas. She hopes to continue writing and producing human-centered print, audio, and video stories about New York City and beyond.

Sebastian Wright is a British documentary filmmaker and video journalist currently part of the Documentary cohort at Columbia Journalism School. His work focuses on human stories within wider social and geopolitical issues, taking him from documenting Indigenous communities in Peru; to reporting on Ukrainian refugees in Poland; to witnessing climate change in Mongolia. He is building a career in long-form documentary journalism, telling ambitious, character-driven stories about people navigating conflict, adversity and the extremes of human experience.

Both McDougall and Wright have a passion for audio and video journalism.  In their role, the Fellows will sit in on the duPont Awards jury, correspond with winners and finalists, help produce duPont’s On Assignment podcast, and support the duPont Awards Ceremony in January 2026.