The MacArthur Foundation announced the names of the 25 individuals selected to receive the MacArthur Fellowship, commonly referred to as the MacArthur "genius" grant, Oct. 4.
The $625,000 fellowship award is a no-strings-attached award to individuals who display exceptional creativity, the promise for important future advances based on their track record of significant accomplishments, and the potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work.
Nominees are brought to the program's attention through a pool of invited external nominators chosen from an array of fields and expertise. The nominations are then evaluated by an independent selection committee comprising roughly a dozen leaders in the arts, sciences, humanities, and for-profit and nonprofit communities. Approximately 20 to 30 fellows are selected and their identities are typically announced in September. Roughly 1,014 individuals have been named MacArthur Fellows since 1981.
Here are three healthcare professionals who were selected for the MacArthur Fellowship for 2018:
- Amy Finkelstein, PhD, a health economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.
- Greg Gonsalves, PhD, an epidemiologist and global health advocate with the department of epidemiology of microbial diseases at New Haven, Conn.-based Yale University
- Doris Tsao, PhD, a neuroscientist with the division of biology and biological engineering at the Pasadena-based California Institute of Technology
To access the full list of recipients, click here.