Academics Win MacArthur 'Genius' Fellowships

A number of academics were among those announced today as winners of the MacArthur Fellows Program, widely called the "genius" grants, although that's not the term favored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The winners (who don't apply but learn that they have won) are selected based on "exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishment and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work." They each receive $625,000, paid out over five years.

The winners in academe:

• Daryl Baldwin, a linguist and cultural preservationist who is director of the Myaamia Center at Miami University of Ohio
• Anne Basting, professor of theater at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee
• Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a playwright and master artist in residence at Hunter College of the City University of New York
• Kellie Jones, associate professor of art history and archaeology at Columbia University
• Subhash Khot, professor of computer science at New York University
• Josh Kun, professor of communication at the University of Southern California
• Maggie Nelson, a writer and faculty member at the California Institute of the Arts
• Dianne Newman, professor of biology and geobiology at California Institute of Technology
• Victoria Orphan, professor of environmental science and geobiology at California Institute of Technology
• Manu Prakash, assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University
• Claudia Rankine, professor of poetry at Yale University
• Lauren Redniss, assistant professor of illustration at Parsons, the New School for Design
• Mary Reid Kelley, a video artist and a senior critic at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design and a critic in painting at the Yale University School of Art
• Rebecca Richards-Kortum, professor of bioengineering at Rice University
• Julia Wolfe, a composer and associate professor of music composition at New York University
• Gene Luen Yang, a graphic novelist who teaches writing at Hamline University
• Jin-Quan Yu, professor of chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute.