2019
ingenuity
OUR 8TH ANNUAL
CELEBRATION OF
THE CREATIVE
BREAKTHROUGHS
SHAPING THE WORLDImaging a black hole required telescopes
on four continents. A gene therapy discov-ery in Tennessee involved physicians from
Poland and Germany. That sensationalsong by Lil Nas X included a beat produced
in the Netherlands. Several achievementswe salute here, it turns out, have an inter-
national dimension. Isn’t it curious that ourtypical American openness to collabora-
tion is often essential to ingenuity?
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN
AWARDS
December 2019 | SMITHSONIAN.COM 45A year after Lil
Nas X released
his hit song “Old
Town Road,” he
can’t wait for
what’s next: “I
feel incredible. I
feel good about
the future.”photograph by KAYLA REEFER