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MacArthur Fellowship

HONOR

$500,000 "genius grant" established by John D. MacArthur for "talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction." About two dozen are named annually.

Official Website:
http://www.macfdn.org/programs/fel/fel_overview.htm

NameOccupationBirthDeathKnown for
Walter Abish
Author
24-Dec-1931   Alphabetical Africa
Fouad Ajami
Author
9-Sep-1945   Director of Middle East Studies, SAIS
Jacques d'Amboise
Dancer
28-Jul-1934   Founder of the National Dance Institute
Allison Anders
Film Director
16-Nov-1954   Grace of My Heart
John Ashbery
Poet
28-Jul-1927   Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
Milton Babbitt
Composer
10-May-1916 29-Jan-2011 Music for Synthesizer
Jacqueline K. Barton
Chemist
7-May-1952   Professor of Chemistry at CalTech
Regina Benjamin
Doctor
26-Oct-1956   US Surgeon General
Tim Berners-Lee
Computer Programmer
8-Jun-1955   Inventor of the World Wide Web
Kai Bird
Historian
1951   American Prometheus
Ran Blake
Pianist
20-Apr-1935   Third Stream composer
James Blinn
Computer Programmer
c. 1948   3D computer imaging pioneer
Harold Bloom
Critic
11-Jul-1930   Literary critic, Yale professor
Anthony Braxton
Jazz Musician
4-Jun-1945   Inventive jazz multi-instrumentalist
Joseph Brodsky
Poet
24-May-1940 28-Jan-1996 "Social parasite" turned Poet Laureate
Octavia Butler
Novelist
22-Jun-1947 24-Feb-2006 Patternmaster
Caroline Bynum
Historian
1941   Medieval historian
Stanley Cavell
Philosopher
1-Sep-1926   Professor of Aesthetics, Harvard
Sandra Cisneros
Author
20-Dec-1954   The House on Mango Street
Stanley Crouch
Columnist
14-Dec-1945   Jazz critic
Merce Cunningham
Dancer
16-Apr-1919 26-Jul-2009 Merce Cunningham Dance Company
Guy Davenport
Author
23-Nov-1927 4-Jan-2005 Thasos and Ohio
Persi Diaconis
Mathematician
31-Jan-1945   Science of random numbers
Jared Diamond
Scientist
10-Sep-1937   Collapse of societies
Sidney D. Drell
Physicist
13-Sep-1926   In the Shadow of the Bomb
Paul R. Ehrlich
Scientist
29-May-1932   The Population Bomb
Aaron L. Friedberg
Government
16-Apr-1956   In the Shadow of the Garrison State
Saul Friedländer
Historian
11-Oct-1932   Holocaust historian
William Gaddis
Novelist
29-Dec-1922 16-Dec-1998 A Frolic of His Own
Ernest J. Gaines
Novelist
15-Jan-1933   A Lesson Before Dying
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Author
16-Sep-1950   The Signifying Monkey
Todd Gitlin
Educator
6-Jan-1943   Journalism professor, social critic
Stephen Jay Gould
Biologist
10-Sep-1941 20-May-2002 Evolutionary scientist
Pedro José Greer, Jr.
Doctor
15-Jun-1956   Gastroenterologist, RAND Trustee
Thom Gunn
Poet
29-Aug-1929 25-Apr-2004 The Man with Night Sweats
Rosanne Haggerty
Administrator
c. 1960   Common Ground Community
John Hollander
Poet
28-Oct-1929   Powers of Thirteen
Irving Howe
Critic
11-Jun-1920 5-May-1993 Editor of Dissent
Bill Irwin
Actor
11-Apr-1950   My Blue Heaven
Deborah S. Jin
Physicist
c. 1968   Created a fermionic condensate
Edward P. Jones
Author
1951   The Known World
William Kennedy
Novelist
16-Jan-1928   Ironweed and The Cotton Club
Jim Yong Kim
Educator
8-Dec-1959   President of Dartmouth College
Jonathan Lethem
Author
19-Feb-1964   Gun with Occasional Music
Cormac McCarthy
Novelist
20-Jul-1933   All the Pretty Horses
Barbara McClintock
Scientist
16-Jun-1902 2-Sep-1992 Discovered transposable genes
James M. McPherson
Historian
11-Oct-1936   US Civil War historian
Robert K. Merton
Sociologist
4-Jul-1910 23-Feb-2003 On the Shoulders of Giants
Arthur Mitchell
Dancer
27-Mar-1934   Dance Theatre of Harlem
Errol Morris
Film Director
5-Feb-1948   Documentary filmmaker
Conlon Nancarrow
Composer
27-Oct-1912 10-Aug-1997 Studies for Player Piano
Patrick Noonan
Activist
c. 1943   Chairman of the Conservation Fund
Douglas D. Osheroff
Physicist
1-Aug-1945   Superfluidity of helium-3
David C. Page
Biologist
6-Jul-1956   Director, Whitehead Institute
Elaine Pagels
Historian
13-Feb-1943   The Gnostic Gospels
Richard Powers
Novelist
18-Jun-1957   The Gold Bug Variations
Martin Puryear
Sculptor
23-May-1941   Post-minimalist
Thomas Pynchon
Novelist
8-May-1937   Gravity's Rainbow
James Randi
Magician
7-Aug-1928   The Amazing Randi
Richard Rhodes
Historian
4-Jul-1937   The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Adrienne Rich
Poet
16-May-1929 27-Mar-2012 An Atlas of the Difficult World
Adam G. Riess
Astronomer
1969   Accelerating expansion of the universe
Alice Rivlin
Economist
4-Mar-1931   Founding director, Congressional Budget Office
Richard Rorty
Philosopher
4-Oct-1931 8-Jun-2007 Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
Carl Safina
Author
23-May-1955   Song for the Blue Ocean
Pamela Samuelson
Educator
c. 1949   Computer Law Professor at UC Berkeley
George Saunders
Author
2-Dec-1958   In Persuasion Nation
John Sayles
Film Director
28-Sep-1950   The Secret of Roan Inish
Nathan Seiberg
Physicist
22-Sep-1956   String theorist at Princeton
Charles Simic
Poet
9-May-1938   The World Doesn't End
David Simon
Author
1960   The Wire
Anna Deavere Smith
Actor
18-Sep-1950   Nancy McNally on The West Wing
Susan Sontag
Author
16-Jan-1933 28-Dec-2004 Novelist, critic, intellectual
Jonathan D. Spence
Historian
11-Aug-1936   The Search for Modern China
Richard Stallman
Computer Programmer
16-Mar-1953   Founder, GNU software project
Mark Strand
Poet
11-Apr-1934   U.S. Poet Laureate 1990-91
Terence Tao
Mathematician
17-Jul-1975   Prolific math prodigy
Cecil Taylor
Jazz Musician
15-Mar-1929   Avant-garde jazz pianist
Joseph H. Taylor, Jr.
Astronomer
24-Mar-1941   Co-Discovered first binary pulsar
Julie Taymor
Film Director
15-Dec-1952   Across the Universe
Twyla Tharp
Dancer
1-Jul-1941   Choreographer
Amos Tversky
Psychologist
16-Mar-1937 2-Jun-1996 Cognitive psychologist, studied risks
Kirk Varnedoe
Curator
19-Jan-1946 15-Aug-2003 Curator at MOMA, 1988-2001
Gregory Vlastos
Philosopher
27-Jul-1907 12-Oct-1991 Influential scholar of ancient philosophy
Derek Walcott
Poet
23-Jan-1930   In a Green Night
David Foster Wallace
Novelist
21-Feb-1962 12-Sep-2008 Infinite Jest
Robert Penn Warren
Poet
24-Apr-1905 15-Sep-1989 First US Poet Laureate
Andrew Wiles
Mathematician
11-Apr-1953   Proved Fermat's Last Theorem
Patricia J. Williams
Scholar
28-Aug-1951   The Alchemy of Race and Rights
William Julius Wilson
Sociologist
20-Dec-1935   Poverty in America's inner cities
Edward Witten
Physicist
26-Aug-1951   String theorist at Princeton
Stephen Wolfram
Mathematician
29-Aug-1959   Creator of Mathematica
Mark S. Wrighton
Educator
1949   Chancellor, Washington University in St. Louis
Charles Wuorinen
Composer
9-Jun-1938   Time's Encomium


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