10 bold innovators from across the United States named to The Rockefeller Foundation fellowship dedicated to driving economic opportunity and helping their communities thrive.

Fellows focusing on distinct projects to help their communities realize economic opportunities, including: expanding workforce pathways, deploying blended capital for climate resilience, building AI-powered talent-matching tools, scaling registered apprenticeships, and strengthening regional innovation ecosystems.

BALTIMORE, April 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Rockefeller Foundation today announced its second class of U.S. Big Bets Fellows at Big Bets for America: Baltimore, a national convening designed to surface, accelerate, and scale the most ambitious solutions to the country's most pressing challenges. This year's 10 fellows — working in California, Central Appalachia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia — joins a growing network of homegrown leaders who are working to ensure that every American, regardless of their zip code, has a real shot at opportunity and prosperity.

Vulnerable communities across the country face mounting economic uncertainty, with far too many families cut off from quality, well-paying jobs and the economic mobility that defines the American Dream. The U.S. labor force participation rate is down to 61.9 percent—the lowest level since 2021—and inflation rose nearly a full percentage point last month. This year's U.S. Big Bets Fellows are working to solve those challenges, channeling local ingenuity into bold, community-driven actions that are already generating results.

"With AI reshaping our economy more profoundly than the Industrial Revolution and too many Americans feeling left behind, this is the time to invest in outstanding local leaders who are advancing dignity in this country," said Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation. "These 10 young leaders are forging unlikely partnerships and harnessing technological innovation to help connect Americans to jobs and opportunity. We are proud to support them and excited to see what they'll do."

Over the course of the five-month fellowship, The Rockefeller Foundation will provide the 2026 U.S. Big Bets Fellows with tailored programming, peer networking, and professional development designed to sharpen their theories of change, build cross-sector partnerships, and mobilize the resources needed to scale their solutions. This year's fellows are working on solutions including building workforce pathways and unlocking capital for underserved communities:

• California – Rachel Halfaker: Help under-resourced communities in California build essential infrastructure, including housing, clean energy, and broadband, by equipping community organizations and providers with AI tooling and protocols that drive down the cost and time of complex planning, financing, and approval processes.
• Central Appalachia – Andrew Crosson: Invest in climate-resilient businesses, community-owned projects, and anti-displacement efforts to create jobs and help communities in Central Appalachia build lasting wealth.
• Indiana – John McDonald: Create stable, well-paying jobs in Indiana by turning real industry challenges into new companies, connecting employers, entrepreneurs, and research to build and scale ventures rooted in regional demand.
• Massachusetts – Rohan Sandhu: Create a robust evidence base for local economic development and turn lessons from individual experiments into system‑wide learning, so communities across the United States can use what works to create good jobs and lasting prosperity.
• National – Lourdes German: Help distressed communities across the United States access public, private, and philanthropic capital, investing in locally driven projects that strengthen long-term economic opportunity, produce quality jobs, and other place-based outcomes.
• New Jersey – Chid Liberty: Reignite the American Dream by making paid apprenticeships the default path to a well-paying career — especially for returning citizens, Veterans, and those experiencing housing instability who have been locked out of traditional pathways. 
• New York – Angela N. Son: Help jobseekers in New York access well-paying clean energy career pathways by creating an easy-to-use, navigable database of training programs and relevant certifications.
• North Carolina – Shalin Rajesh Jyotishi: Build the capacity of America's community colleges to connect low-income students to the jobs created and shaped by emerging technologies, regional innovation ecosystems, and tech-based economic development.
• Ohio – Serena Jezior: Transform how job seekers in Cleveland, Ohio connect with quality employers and jobs, using AI to align their core interests and innate skills for longer-lasting career opportunities.
• Tennessee – Marshall Scott Ogier: Help residents in Memphis, Tennessee—especially those facing barriers like low income, childcare, and transportation—secure stable, living-wage jobs by connecting fragmented workforce efforts into one coordinated system of training, supports, and employer-linked opportunities.

The 2026 Fellows were announced during Big Bets for America: Baltimore, part of a national series of convenings that together reflect how American leaders—spanning philanthropy, policy, private sector, and non-profits—can come together to tackle the most pressing challenges and scale innovative solutions nation-wide. The events celebrate ingenuity, mobilize cross-sector leadership, and translate local progress into national momentum.

The 2026 U.S. Big Bets Fellowship builds on the momentum of its inaugural class, announced in May 2025, which brought together 11 fellows from Alaska to West Virginia working on everything from Food is Medicine initiatives to Indigenous economic development. Those fellows are now deepening their impact — refining their approaches, forging new partnerships, and demonstrating that local solutions, when properly supported, can achieve national scale. The 2026 U.S. Big Bets Fellows also join previous classes for Latin America and the Asia-Pacific, which were announced in 2024 and 2025, respectively.

"This fellowship showed me what it looks like when people doing this work actually find each other," said Colby Hall, 2025 U.S. Big Bet Fellow and Director of Regional Economic Development at Craft Philanthropy. "The relationships I built with this cohort are ones I'll be leaning on for years to come."

Since its founding in 1913, The Rockefeller Foundation has worked across political, sectoral, and community lines to deliver results for people across the United States. Since 2005, the Foundation has invested nearly $3 billion in the United States — across every state — to advance Food is Medicine initiatives, and efforts to expand economic opportunity for all. This includes a $300 million commitment to America's future over the past three years.

About The Rockefeller Foundation

Investing $30 billion over the last 113 years to promote the well-being of humanity, The Rockefeller Foundation is a pioneering philanthropy built on unlikely partnerships and innovative solutions that deliver measurable results for people in the United States and around the world. We leverage scientific breakthroughs, artificial intelligence, and new technologies to make big bets across energy, food, health, and finance, including with our public charity, RF Catalytic Capital (RFCC). For more information, sign up for our newsletter at www.rockefellerfoundation.org/subscribe and follow us on X @RockefellerFdn, Instagram @rockefellerfdn, and LinkedIn @the-rockefeller-foundation.

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SOURCE The Rockefeller Foundation