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MacArthur Foundation Announces Genius Grants

Posted by chrisd on from the chrisd-pinhead-awards-to-follow dept.

Chagasi writes: "The MacArthur Foundation has announced this year's 'Genius Grant' awards. The complete list of the 24 recipients can be read here(1) at their web site and here(2) via Google's news service. The winners include a robotics researcher from Dartmouth studying robotics, and a paleoethnobotanist from Penn State studying the ancient plants and foods of prehistoric peoples."

4 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. diversity by nydel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    i'm glad to see such diversity on the list of recipients; it goes from trombone improvisationalists to robotics engineers. it's good to see both linear and non-linear genius recognized by the same organization.

  2. Grants for open source developers by thodu · · Score: 1, Interesting

    How can we lobby these Foundations to give grants to leading open source people like Larry Wall or Linus ? People who are much more than just good programmers but visionaries in their own right.

  3. Uncommon Genius by spiel · · Score: 2, Interesting

    An interesting book I read a few years back - Uncommon Genius by Denise Shekerjian. She interviewed a number of the MacArthur Foundation winners to try to determine what makes a genius.

    What she found was that none of the winners could imagine doing anything else.... they did what they did out of love for their field.... and that they had all been doing it for a long, long time, day in and day out, just doing their work. Even the youngest winner she interviewed -- who I think was a linguist in his 20's -- had been studying languages since he was 6 years old.

    Also some interesting background on the MacArthurs and the Foundation if I recall.....

    --

    The fundamental nature of the ordinary man is to go on out and do the best you can. -- John Prine
  4. Excellent book by selan · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas Are Born by Denise G. Shekerjian

    This is a great book about the Macarthur fellows and the fellowship program, and about creative thinking in general. It contains a series of interviews with forty fellows and tries to understand how they get their ideas.

    Anyone want to write a /. review?