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A lobsterman from Maine, an oncologist from Nigeria and five California academics are among the 25 people chosen for this year's John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "genius grants," $500,000 that recipients can use however they wish.
MacArthur foundation awards $500,000 grants to group of 'bold and risk-taking people'
CHICAGO - A lobsterman from Maine, an oncologist from Nigeria and five California academics are among the 25 people chosen for this year's John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "genius grants," $500,000 that recipients can use however they wish.
"As a group, the new MacArthur fellows are bold and risk-taking people changing our landscape and advancing our possibilities," said Dan Socolow, director of the MacArthur Fellows Program, in a press release.
And each is now officially a genius, even if they don't feel like one. Among the winners is Pehr Harbury, associate professor of biochemistry at Stanford University. Harbury is a biochemist whose work focuses on the structure and activity of proteins.
Harbury, 40, said he will use his award to help pay for his research, which is using "test-tube evolution" to streamline the drug-discovery process.
"I won't have to spend all my time writing grants," Harbury said.
Michael Manga, 37, a UC Berkeley geophysicist, creates simulated volcanoes in his lab, a little like those from sixth-grade science experiments, but better.
The list also includes two other Cal researchers, a violin maker from Michigan, a New York sculptor, novelist Jonathan Lethem and a Swiss documentary filmmaker.
The list of nominees is kept secret.
Like all the winners, Manga was shocked when he got the phone call last week.
Once the shock wore off, Manga realized "all the cool things" he could do with the money - like trips to volcanoes in Ethiopia and Tanzania.
Nicole King, a biologist at UC Berkeley, was also surprised by the grant.
Sure, she has identified animal-like genes in single-cell organisms in her quest for the beginning of animal life on Earth, but a genius at 35?
"I have to say it's pretty scary," she said of the prize and the title that seem to carry enormous expectations. "I honestly, at each step of my career, have been plagued with self-doubt and that's not going to end now."
King said she has no idea how she'll use the money, which comes with no strings attached and is distributed over five years.
Lu Chen, 33, a Berkeley neuroscientist, studies how brain cell connections are created and destroyed and how that affects memory.
"It was a huge shock," she said. "I thought they were asking my recommendation for someone else."
On the other side of the country, lobsterman and fisherman Ted Ames, 66, was the oldest recipient this year. Ames descends from a family that has fished off the coast of Maine since before the Revolutionary War.
Disturbed by the threat to the fishery ecosystem from over-harvesting, Ames conducts detailed scientific studies of spawning, habitat and fishing patterns - often starting with the anecdotal experiences of aging fishermen.
Dr. Olufunmilayo Olopade, 48, left Nigeria for Chicago as a young woman and became an international leader in breast cancer research, recently focusing on the molecular genetics of breast cancer in women of African heritage.
Now director of the Center for Clinical Cancer Genetics at the University of Chicago Medical Center, she regularly returns to Nigeria to train doctors in the latest cancer treatments and research.
"To have an opportunity to leverage my position here to help underserved, underprivileged, understudied patients has really been my life's mission," Olopade said. "I'm blown away someone took notice."
Manga said, so far, at home, the title has only brought a few sarcastic "genius" ribs added to domestic requests from his wife.
"Doesn't get me out of doing the dishes or vacuuming or changing diapers," he added.