Meet the 2015 MacArthur Fellows
These 24 delightfully diverse MacArthur Fellows are shedding light and making progress on critical issues, pushing the boundaries of their fields, and improving our world in imaginative, unexpected ways,” said MacArthur President Julia Stasch. “Their work, their commitment, and their creativity inspire us all.
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Education Entrepreneur
Creating a new model for higher education in Africa that combines training in ethical leadership, a liberal arts tradition, and skills for contemporary African needs and opportunities.
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Environmental Engineer
Transforming wastewater from a pollutant requiring disposal to a resource for useful products, such as commodity chemicals, energy sources, and fertilizers.
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Journalist
Interpreting complex and challenging issues around race and racism through the lens of personal experience and nuanced historical analysis.
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Environmental Health Advocate
Spurring environmental responsibility among health care providers and repositioning health care institutional practice around the broader challenges of sustainability, climate change, and community health.
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Urban Sociologist
Revealing the impact of eviction on poor families and the role of housing policy in sustaining poverty and racial inequality in large American cities.
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Chemist
Pioneering the assembly of molecules into stable, high surface-area networks with potential applications in electronic, optical, and energy storage devices.
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Tap Dancer and Choreographer
Reinvigorating a uniquely American dance form in works that combine the musicality of tap with the choreographic intricacies of contemporary dance.
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Painter
Expanding the expressive potential of the figurative tradition in works that engage contemporary social issues and restore cultural significance to the representation of the human form.
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Photographer and Video Artist
Capturing the consequences of postindustrial decline for marginalized communities and illustrating how photography can promote dialogue about historical change and social responsibility.
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Writer
Transcending conventional distinctions of genre and style in works that convey the texture of our contemporary moment and explore the relevance of art and the artist in modern culture.
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Set Designer
Translating a text’s narrative and emotional dynamics onto the stage in bold, immersive sets that enhance the performance experience for theater makers and viewers alike.
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Playwright, Composer, and Performer
Expanding the conventions of musical theater with a popular culture sensibility and musical styles and voices that reflect the diverse cultural panorama of the American urban experience.
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Classicist
Challenging long-held assumptions about modes of economic exchange and political authority in prehistoric Greek societies and revealing their connections to the origins of modern civilization.
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Computational Biologist
Shedding new light on the links between geography and genomic diversity and producing a more finely grained picture of human evolutionary history.
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Computer Scientist
Democratizing big data analytics through open source data-processing products that have the power of machine learning algorithms but can be integrated into existing and applied database systems.
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Historian
Mining textual materials from the Cairo Geniza to deepen our understanding of medieval Muslim and Jewish communities.
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Community Leader
Creating a model for workforce development and training among immigrant communities through a holistic approach that addresses language skills, education, and other barriers to entering the workforce.
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Neuroscientist
Revealing the heretofore unknown role of microglial cells in neuron communication and prompting a fundamental shift in thinking about brain development in both healthy and unhealthy states.
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Stem Cell Biologist
Pioneering a new method for large-scale generation of dopaminergic neurons that could provide one of the first treatments for Parkinson’s disease and prove the broader feasibility of stem cell–based therapies for other neurological disorders.
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Adaptive Designer and Fabricator
Constructing low-tech, affordable, and customized tools and furniture that enable children with disabilities to participate actively in their homes, schools, and communities.
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Puppetry Artist and Director
Revitalizing puppetry as a serious and sophisticated art form in imaginative experiments with its materials, techniques, and uses in both narrative and abstract works.
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Poet
Meditating on will and fate and the life cycles of the natural world through a distinctive intermingling of lyric and narrative modes and ongoing experimentation with form and technique.
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Economist
Unraveling the forces that hinder or spur medical innovation through empirically based studies that are informing public policy.
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Inorganic Chemist
Opening new horizons for tackling the global challenge of clean, renewable energy sources through transformative advances in the science of semiconductor nanowires and nanowire photonics.
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