Cherokee Nation Citizen Jack Carson, MIT Sophomore, Named 2026 Udall Scholar

Tulsa native is first MIT student ever to win the national award for tribal policy.

Story Written by Cara Cowan Watts for Cherokee 411

Jack Carson named 2026 Udall Scholar

TULSA, Okla. — Jack Carson, a second-year undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, has been named a 2026 Udall Scholar by the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation. He is one of up to 65 undergraduates selected nationally for the $7,500 award, and only the third MIT student to receive it — the first ever recognized in the tribal public policy category.

The Udall Scholarship identifies future leaders in three fields: the environment, Indigenous health care, and tribal public policy. The federal foundation honors the legacies of brothers Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall, whose careers shaped Native American self-governance, health care, and public-lands stewardship.

Carson is the son of Cherokee Nation citizen Brad Carson and Julie Carson of Tulsa, and a descendant of the Adair family, one of the Cherokee Nation's historically prominent families.

"Jack is the type of leader the Udall Foundation exists to support," said Kim Benard, MIT's associate dean for distinguished fellowships. "He's not only conducting cutting-edge research, but he's actively creating opportunities for Indigenous students to enter tech fields."

Research at the intersection of AI and medicine

Majoring in electrical engineering and computer science, Carson conducts research at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) in the Barzilay Lab, where he develops multiomics models for personalized therapeutic target identification. His work bridging deep learning and statistical physics produced a sole-author paper accepted at the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), one of the field's most selective venues.

Building tech pathways for Indigenous students

Carson founded Code.Tulsa, a summer technology program introducing Indigenous high school students to computer science and careers in technology. The program responds to the persistent underrepresentation of Indigenous people in the technology sector — a gap with direct implications for tribal sovereignty, economic development, and self-determination in the digital era.

Ethics, the arts, and beyond

Earlier this year, Carson was awarded the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics Essay Contest. He is also an accomplished musician who has performed at Carnegie Hall and with the National Opera, a motorcycle racer, and a self-described philosopher with a deep interest in questions of justice and responsibility.

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About the Udall Scholarship

Established by Congress in 1992, the Udall Foundation is an independent federal agency. Its undergraduate scholarship is widely regarded as among the nation's most prestigious awards for college students, alongside the Truman, Marshall, and Rhodes scholarships. The 2026 cohort was announced May 7, 2026.

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