Academics Among ‘Genius’ Grant Winners

Academics are among those announced today as winners of the MacArthur Fellows program, long (but unofficially) called the "genius" awards. Winners receive $625,000 over four years, with no obligations. Winners are selected on the basis of three criteria:

• Exceptional creativity,
• Promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishments, and
• Potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work.

Academics among this year's winners are:

• Sunil Amrith, the Mehra Family Professor of South Asian Studies and a professor of history at Harvard University.
• Annie Baker, a playwright who is co-associate chair of the M.F.A. in Playwriting Program at Hunter College of the City University of New York.
• Regina Barzilay, the Delta Electronics Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• Dawoud Bey, professor of photography at Columbia College Chicago.
• Emmanuel Candès, the Barnum-Simons Chair in Mathematics and Statistics at Stanford University.
• Jason De León, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan.
• Viet Thanh Nguyen, Aerol Arnold Chair of English and professor of American studies and ethnicity and of comparative literature at the University of Southern California.
• Betsy Levy Paluck, a professor of psychology and public affairs and deputy director of the Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Science and Policy at Princeton University.
• Derek Peterson, a professor of history and Afro-American and African studies at the University of Michigan.
• Stefan Savage, a professor of computer science and engineering, co-director of the Center for Evidence-Based Security Research, and co-director of the Center for Networked Systems at the University of California, San Diego.
• Tyshawn Sorey, an assistant professor of music at Wesleyan University.
• Gabriel Victora, the Laurie and Peter Grauer Assistant Professor and head of the Laboratory of Lymphocyte Dynamics at Rockefeller University.

More information about all of the winners and the program may be found here.