MacArthur 'Genius Grant' Winners Include Cartoonist, Mathematician, Engineer
New Crop of 21 Fellows for 2014 to Receive Awards of $625,000, No Strings Attached
CHICAGO—A mathematician offering his book free on the Internet, an engineer helping organizations redesign home stoves around the world to cut pollution and a cartoonist using graphics to explore family relationships will each get a boost in their pursuit of modern solutions to age-old issues, thanks to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
The three are among this year's 21 recipients of MacArthur fellowships, colloquially known as "genius grants." (See their photos.)
Each $625,000 award, spread out over five years, comes with no strings attached and is intended to offer ambitious people a degree of financial freedom to elevate their work.
"I couldn't imagine a more significant validation of the importance of the work we are doing," said Jonathan Rapping, a 48-year-old winner and founder of Gideon's Promise, a seven-year-old nonprofit that coaches public defenders to more effectively aid poor clients, largely in the South.
Mr. Rapping, who likened his program to a Teach for America for public defenders, said the extra funding will be a big help and will influence future decisions. His wife gave up her teaching job—and the pension that goes with it—a few years ago to help run the organization with him.
"Every year we think, 'Is this too big of a risk?' and now we have the financial freedom to do what we need to do," he said.
The MacArthur program, which began in 1981, has given money to about 900 fellows, who are nominated, evaluated and chosen anonymously. This year's winners span in age from 32 to 71 and include nine women and 12 men. A common thread: The winners reach their audiences in surprising places.
"This year, we have several people who one might describe as being engaged to challenge the rest of us to be lifelong learners outside the traditional classroom," said Cecilia Conrad, who directs the fellows program as a vice president of the foundation. "It's new solutions to old problems."
Tami Bond, a 50-year-old environmental engineer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is measuring emissions around the world and helping organizations come up with new household cooking stoves for use in developing countries that are more efficient and produce less soot.
Mathematician Jacob Lurie, who was honored for redefining models in algebraic geometry, negotiated with his publisher to make his book on math principles available for free download on his personal website. While academics sometimes place papers online free, putting a whole book online isn't yet standard practice, according to the 36-year-old Harvard University professor. "From my point of view, the benefit of writing a book is for people to look at it. I would like as many people as possible to look at it," he said.
Alison Bechdel, a 54-year-old cartoonist and graphic memoirist known for a long-running comic strip about a group of lesbian friends, plans to use part of the money to buy a huge scanner to help with her work....MORE
I'll stop right there knowing that you're probably more interested in how you can make the 2015 vintage rather than what this cohort is all about.
First posted in September 2007.How to become a MacArthur genius.As for those cash payments:
From Slate (Warning. Spoilers Ahead):
The MacArthur Foundation anointed 24 new geniuses Tuesday. They granted $500,000 fellowships to artists, engineers, and a host of other creative types. The foundation dispenses no-strings-attached awards every year to people who display "creativity, originality, and potential to make important contributions in the future." In 2000, David Plotz told aspiring geniuses the seven rules to live by to win the hearts and minds of the MacArthur Foundation. The article is reprinted below.
When Peter Hayes learned that he had won a $500,000 MacArthur genius grant last month, he was stunned: It's "like being hit by a Mack truck. … It's a little disorienting," he told the San Francisco Chronicle. Hayes shouldn't have been too disoriented. It would have been surprising if he hadn't collected a MacArthur. He helps North Korea develop windmills as an alternative to nuclear power. He takes underprivileged kids sailing in San Francisco Bay during his free time. And he lives in Berkeley, Calif., where you can't buy a latte without meeting a MacArthur-stamped brainiac.
Since 1981, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has awarded 588 "fellowships" worth nearly $200 million to Americans "who show exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work."
(The foundation detests the word "genius" because it "because it connotes a singular characteristic of intellectual prowess.")
The fellowship is a no-strings-attached grant: Each 2000 winner will get $100,000 a year for five years. MacArthur calls the cash a gift of time, because it frees winners from financial constraints on their art, science, or activism. (The $4 billion foundation is the estate of John D. MacArthur, a skinflint who became the second-richest American by selling cut-rate insurance through the mail. His son Rod grabbed control of the trust after John's 1978 death and pushed the genius project.)...MORE
Warning: Spoilers
Rule No. 1: Live in New York or San Francisco.
Rule No. 2: Be a professor.
Rule No. 3: If you don't want to teach college, make art.
Rule No. 4: Do not, under any circumstances, work for the government or the private sector.
Rule No. 5: Upset conventional wisdom.
Rule No. 6: Be left wing.
Rule No. 7: Be slightly, but not dangerously, quirky.
MacArthur Foundation linked to payday lending
