Artist and curator Julie Ault, painter Titus Kaphar and filmmaker and performance artist Wu Tsang are among the 25 winners of this year’s MacArthur Foundation’s ‘Genius’ Grants. Awarded annually to citizens of the US, it rewards ‘talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction’. Each fellow will receive an unrestricted grant of $625,000 (approx. £480,000), paid over the course of five years.
Cecilia Conrad, managing director of the MacArthur Fellows Program, commented on the winners: ‘Working in diverse fields, from the arts and sciences to public health and civil liberties, these twenty-five MacArthur Fellows are solving long-standing scientific and mathematical problems, pushing art forms into new and emerging territories, and addressing the urgent needs of under-resourced communities.’
The full list of 2018 fellows are:
Matthew Aucoin, Composer and Conductor, New York
Julie Ault, Artist and Curator, New York
William J. Barber II, Pastor and Social Justice Advocate, Goldsboro, North Carolina
Clifford Brangwynne, Biophysical Engineer, Princeton, New Jersey
Natalie Diaz, Poet, Tempe, Arizona
Livia S. Eberlin, Analytical Chemist, Austin, Texas
Deborah Estrin, Computer Scientist, New York
Amy Finkelstein, Health Economist, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Gregg Gonsalves, Epidemiologist and Global Health Advocate, New Haven, Connecticut
Vijay Gupta, Violinist and Social Justice Advocate, Los Angeles
Becca Heller, Human Rights Lawyer, New York
Raj Jayadev, Community Organizer, San Jose, California
Titus Kaphar, Painter, New Haven, Connecticut
John Keene, Writer, Newark, New Jersey
Kelly Link, Fiction Writer, Northampton, Massachusetts
Dominique Morisseau, Playwright, New York
Okwui Okpokwasili, Choreographer and Performer, New York
Kristina Olson, Psychologist, Seattle
Lisa Parks, Media Scholar, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Rebecca Sandefur, Sociologist and Legal Scholar, Urbana, Illinois
Allan Sly, Mathematician, Princeton, New Jersey
Sarah T. Stewart, Planetary Scientist, Davis, California
Wu Tsang, Filmmaker and Performance Artist, New York
Doris Tsao, Neuroscientist, Pasadena, California
5 October 2018
Ken Ward Jr., Investigative Journalist, Charleston, West Virginia
