Seven Women With Current Ties to Academic World Named MacArthur Fellows

The Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation has announced the selection of 21 individuals in this year’s class of MacArthur Fellows. The honors, frequently referred to as the “Genius Awards,” include a $625,000 stipend over the next five years which the individuals can use as they see fit.

Of this year’s 21 MacArthur Fellows, nine are women. Seven have current ties to the academic world.

Danielle Bassett, Mary L. Bonauto, Tami Bond, Sarah Deer, Jennifer L. Eberhardt, Pamela O. Long, and Tara Zahra

Danielle Bassett is the Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Innovation in the department of bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She is a physicist who is studying the connectivity and organizational principles of the human brain. Dr. Bassett is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in England and did postdoctoral study at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Mary L. Bonauto is director of the Civil Rights Project at Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders in Boston. She is also the Shikes Fellow in Civil Liberties and Civil Rights and a lecturer at Harvard Law School. She has been a leading figure in the battles to legalize same-sex marriages across the United States. Bonauto is a graduate of Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, and the Northeastern University School of Law in Boston.

Tami Bond is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Illinois. Her research focuses on carbon emissions and their impact on climate change and human health. Professor Bond holds a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. She also earned a master’s degree at the University of California, Berkeley. She did postdoctoral research at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratories of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle.

Sarah Deer is a professor and co-director of the Indian Law Clinic at the William Mitchell College of Law in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She is a legal scholar and advocate for the prevention of sexual assault and domestic violence against American Indian women. She joined the faculty at the law school in 2009. Professor Deer is a graduate of the University of Kansas and the University of Kansas School of Law.

Jennifer L. Eberhardt is an associate professor of psychology at Stanford University in California. Her research focuses on how race impacts police behavior and how it affects sentencing decisions by judges and juries. Dr. Eberhardt has been affiliated with Stanford University since 1998. Previously, she taught at Yale University. Dr. Eberhardt is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati. She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Pamela O. Long is a historian of science and technology. She is the author of the prize-winning book Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) and Artisan/Practitioners and the Rise of the New Sciences, 1400-1600 (Oregon State University Press, 2011). She has taught a Princeton University, the American Academy in Rome, and the Getty Research Institute. Dr. Long holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the University of Maryland, College Park and a master of social work degree from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Tara Zahra is a professor of East European history at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands, 1900-1948 (Cornell University Press, 2008) and The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families After World War II (Harvard University Press, 2011). Professor Zahra is a graduate of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.