New class of MacArthur “geniuses” strongly linked to academe

A majority of the 2023 MacArthur Foundation fellows, whose “genius” will be rewarded with $800,000 over five years to spend however they wish, are affiliated with institutions of higher education. They include:

• Legal scholar E. Tendayi Achiume, the inaugural Alicia Miñana Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law, for reframing foundational concepts of international law at the intersection of racial justice and global migration.
• Incarceration law scholar Andrea Armstrong, the Dr. Norman C. Francis Distinguished Professor of Law at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, for bringing transparency to detention policies, conditions of confinement and deaths in U.S. prisons and jails.
• Statistician Rina Foygel Barber, the Louis Block Professor in the Department of Statistics and the College at the University of Chicago, for developing tools to reduce false positives and improve confidence in high-dimensional data models.

• Composer and pianist Courtney Bryan, associate professor of music and jazz studies, at Newcomb Department of Music of Tulane University, for melding elements of jazz, classical and sacred music in works that reverberate with social and political issues of our time.
• Cellular and molecular biologist Jason D. Buenrostro, an associate member of the Broad Institute and an assistant professor in the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University, for developing methods and technologies that advance our understanding of the mechanisms regulating gene expression.
• Multidisciplinary artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons, the Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair of Fine Arts at Vanderbilt University, for exploring personal and collective histories across the Caribbean with a distinctive and expansive visual style.

• Demographer and reproductive health researcher Diana Greene Foster, professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, for investigating how reproductive health-care policies and access impact individuals’ physical, mental and socioeconomic well-being.
• Environmental ecologist Lucy Hutyra, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University, for investigating impacts of urbanization on environmental carbon cycle dynamics.
• Environmental engineer Linsey Marr, the Charles P. Lunsford Professor and University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, for examining indoor and outdoor air quality and the airborne transmission of infectious bioaerosols.

• Fiction writer Manuel Muñoz, a professor in the Department of English at the University of Arizona, for depicting with empathy and nuance the Mexican American communities of California’s Central Valley.
• Interdisciplinary scholar and writer Imani Perry, the Henry A. Morss Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, for giving fresh context to history and the cultural expressions forged by Black Americans in the face of injustice.
• Hydroclimatologist A. Park Williams, a professor in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, for uncovering new insights into how climate change influences drought, wildfires and tree mortality.  
• Anthropologist Amber Wutich, President’s Professor and director of the Center for Global Health at Arizona State University, for documenting the impact of water insecurity on human well‑being and the social infrastructure communities use to cope with inadequate water.