The fellowship, which comes with a stipend of $625,000 paid in quarterly installments over five years, awards unrestricted fellowships to individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits as well as a capacity for self-direction. Columbia University environmental engineer integrating microbial ecology, molecular biology and engineering to transform wastewater into useful resources such as fertilizers, energy sources and clean water.Ta-Nehisi Coates, 39, Washington, D.C. Journalist and blogger who writes about issues such as racial identity, urban policing and racial bias.Gary Cohen, 59, Reston, Virginia.
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Michelle Dorrance, 36, New York: “Tap dancer and choreographer reinvigorating a uniquely American dance form in works that combine the musicality of tap with the choreographic intricacies of contemporary dance”.
“You think it’s a prank until you hear everyone on the [conference] call describing your work”, said grant recipient Matthew Desmond, a sociologist who lived in temporary housing to study evictions.
The painter Nicole Eisenman, 50, who with her “challenging engagement with the human figure and investigation of social meaning, … is developing new conventions of figuration to address enduring themes of the human condition”.
Latoya Ruby Frazier, the photographer and video artist from Chicago, focuses her work on Braddock, Pennsylvania, her hometown, and “deals with the intersection of the steel industry, environmental pollution, and the healthcare crisis”.
The writer Ben Lerner, 36, who the foundation says is “transcending conventional distinctions of genre and style in a body of work that constitutes an extended meditation on how to capture our contemporary moment”.
Mimi Lien, 39, New York: “Set designer translating a text’s narrative and emotional dynamics onto the stage in bold, immersive sets that enhance the performance experience for theater makers and viewers alike”.
Dimitri Nakassis, 40, a classicist at the University of Toronto whose “multifaceted approach to the study of Bronze Age Greece is redefining the methodologies and frameworks of the field, and his nuanced picture of political authority and modes of economic exchange in Mycenaean Greece is illuminating the prehistoric underpinnings of Western civilization”. One created a university in Africa, another a community organization in Chicago. Stanford University computer scientist, who has created an inference engine, DeepDive, that can analyze data in a way that is beyond the capabilities of traditional databases.Marina Rustow, 46, Princeton, New Jersey.
Beth Stevens, 45, Boston: “Neuroscientist revealing the heretofore unknown role of microglial cells in neuron communication and prompting a fundamental shift in thinking about brain development in both healthy and unhealthy states”. And Basil Twist, 46, has been significantly responsible for raising puppetry to the level of serious dramatic art in the USA, much as it is in Japan and throughout Asia, while broadening the scope and form of their use in contemporary and frequently mind-boggling fare, often at the innovative HERE Arts Center in New York’s Soho.
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The poet Ellen Bryant Voigt, 72, who “continues to advance American literary culture through her ongoing experimentation with form and technique”. An economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Williams has explored the causes and consequences of innovation in health care markets.Peidong Yang, 44, Berkeley, California.
