The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced Tuesday its 2024 class of fellows, often known as recipients of the “genius grant.”
The 22 fellows will each receive a grant of $800,000 over five years to spend however they want. They were selected from nominations in a yearslong process that solicits input from their communities and peers. Fellows do not apply and are never officially informed that they’ve been nominated unless they are selected for the award.
The interdisciplinary award seeks to “enable” people with a track record and the potential to produce additional extraordinary work, said Marlies Carruth, director of the MacArthur Fellows Program.
The 2024 fellows are:
Loka Ashwood, 39, Lexington, Kentucky, a sociologist at the University of Kentucky who studies how environmental issues, corporations and state policy intersect to harm rural communities and reduce their trust in democracy.
Ruha Benjamin, 46, Princeton, New Jersey, a transdisciplinary scholar and writer at Princeton University who studies how new technologies and medical research often reinforce social and racial inequality and bias.