CHICAGO
Twenty-four people from a wide range of fields have been awarded $625,000, no-strings attached fellowships from the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation, the organization announced today. The so-called “genius grants” are awarded annually to people who have shown extraordinary talent and creativity. The 2017 fellows are:
Njideka Akunyili Crosby, painter
Sunil Amrith, historian
Greg Asbed, human rights strategist
Annie Baker, playwright
Regina Barzilay, computer scientist
Dawoud Bey, photographer, educator
Emmanuel Candès, mathematician, statistician
Jason De León, anthropologist
Rhiannon Giddens, singer, songwriter
Nikole Hannah-Jones, journalist
Cristina Jiménez Moreta, social justice organizer
Taylor Mac, theater artist
Rami Nashashibi, community leader
Viet Thanh Nguyen, fiction writer, cultural critic
Kate Orff, landscape architect
Trevor Paglen, artist and geographer,
Betsy Levy Paluck, psychologist
Derek Peterson, historian
Damon Rich, designer, urban planner
Stefan Savage, computer scientist
Yuval Sharon, opera director/producer
Tyshawn Sorey, composer, musician
Gabriel Victora, immunologist
Jesmyn Ward, fiction writer
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