The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation recently announced the 20 latest recipients in its fellowship program, commonly referred to as “genius grants.” MacArthur fellows receive a grant of $800,000 over five years to spend however they want on their academic or creative endeavors.
Of this year’s 20 winners, 10 are women with current ties to the academic world.
E. Tendayi Achiume is the Alicia Min?ana Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles. Professor Achiume received a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a juris doctorate from Yale Law School. Before coming to UCLA in 2014, she worked as a legal clerk in the Constitutional Court of South Africa.
Andrea Armstrong is the Dr. Norman C. Francis Distinguished Professor of Law at Loyola University New Orleans. Her scholarship focuses on state and federal law governing incarceration and detention policies. Armstrong earned a bachelor’s degree from New York University, a master of public affairs degree from Princeton University, and a juris doctorate from Yale University.
Rina Foygel Barber is the Louis Block Professor in the department of statistics at the University of Chicago. She conducts research on the theoretical foundations of formal inference and prediction models and the designing of new methods for working with massive and multidimensional datasets. Dr. Barber is a graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University.
Courtney Bryan is an associate professor of music and jazz studies at Tulane University in New Orleans. She also serves as the Albert and Linda Mintz Professor of Music and composer-in-residence at Opera Philadelphia. Dr. Bryan is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio. She earned a master’s degree in music from Rutgers University in New Jersey and a second master’s degree and a doctorate in music from Columbia University.
María Magdalena Campos-Pons is the Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair and professor of fine arts at Vanderbilt University, where she founded the Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice Program. Her artistic practice spans photography, performance, sculpture, drawing, painting, and video. She holds degrees from the National School of Art and the Higher Institute of Art both in Havana, Cuba.
Diana Greene Foster is a professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences in the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She studies contraception and abortion care center patients’ needs and preferences. Dr. Foster is the author of The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having – or Being Denied – an Abortion (Simon & Schuster, 2020). Dr. Foster received a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. from Princeton University.
Lucy Hutyra is a professor in the department of earth and environment at Boston University. Dr. Hutyra’s research focuses on how components of local and regional ecologies (plants, trees, and soil) contribute to urban carbon fluxes and how much carbon is exchanged between these and nonbiological sources. She joined the faculty of Boston University in 2009. Dr. Hutyra is a graduate of the University of Washington. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Linsey Marr is the Charles P. Lunsford Professor and University Distinguished Professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Working at the intersection of atmospheric science, public health, and infectious disease, her research examines the transmission of airborne diseases such as influenza and COVID-19 and identifies effective public health interventions. Dr. Marr is a graduate of Harvard University and earned a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley.
Imani Perry is the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute. She is also the Henry A. Morss, Jr., and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies and co-founder of the Black Teacher Archive at Harvard University. Professor Perry is a graduate of Yale University, where she majored in literature and American studies. She earned a Ph.D. in American studies from Harvard University, a juris doctorate from Harvard Law School, and a master’s degree in law from Georgetown University.
Amber Wutich is a President’s Professor and director of the Center for Global Health at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on the cultural norms, informal economies, and social networks that communities develop to cope with inadequate access to safe water. She is the author or co-author of several books including Lazy, Crazy, and Disgusting: Stigma and the Undoing of Global Health (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019). Professor Wutich earned a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Florida.