Cecilia Conrad, vice president for academic affairs and dean at Pomona College in California, has been named director of the MacArthur Fellows Program. The appointment is effective on January 15, 2013.
Each year the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation names a large group of academics and artists as fellows. Recipients of the fellowships receive awards of $500,000 over a five-year period which they can use as they see fit with no strings attached. The program is commonly referred to as the “Genius Awards.”
Prior to joining the Pomona faculty in 1995, Dr. Conrad taught at Duke University, Barnard College, and Columbia University. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wellesley College and earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.