2019 MacArthur Foundation 'genius grant' winners include U-M philosopher; legal scholar; and criminal justice reformer

CHICAGO (AP) — A poet, a legal scholar, a theater artist, a paleoclimatologist, an urban designer and a marine scientist are among the luminaries who have been named as this year’s MacArthur fellows. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on Wednesday named 26 people who will each receive $625,000 over five years to use as they please. The Chicago-based foundation has awarded the so-called genius grants every year since 1981 to help further the pursuits of people with outstanding talent.

The 2019 fellows are:

Elizabeth Anderson, 59: philosopher, University of Michigan.

Sujatha Baliga, 48: attorney and restorative justice practitioner, Oakland, California.

Lynda Barry, 63: graphic novelist, cartoonist and education, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Mel Chin, 67: artist, Egypt Township, North Carolina.

Danielle Citron, 50: legal scholar, Boston University School of Law.

Lisa Daugaard, 53: criminal justice reformer, Seattle.

Annie Dorsen, 45: theater artist, New York City.

Andrea Dutton, 46: geochemist and paleoclimatologist, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Jeffrey Gibson, 47: visual artist, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

Mary Halvorson, 38: composer and guitarist, New York City.

Saidiya Hartman, 58: Literary scholar and cultural historian, Columbia University.

Walter Hood, 61: landscape and public artist, University of California-Berkeley.

Stacy Jupiter, 43: marine scientist, Suva, Fiji.

Zachary Lippman, 41: plant biologist, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Valeria Luiselli, 36: writer, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

Kelly Lytle Hernandez, 45: historian, University of California.

Sarah Michelson, 55: choreographer, New York City.

Jeffrey Alan Miller, 35: literary scholar, Montclair State University.

Jerry X. Mitrovica, 58: theoretical geophysicist, Harvard University.

Emmanuel Pratt, 42: urban designer, Chicago.

Cameron Rowland, 30: artist, New York City.

Vanessa Ruta, 45: neuroscientist, The Rockefeller University.

Joshua Tenenbaum, 47: cognitive scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jenny Tung, 37: evolutionary anthropologist and geneticist, Duke University.

Ocean Vuong, 30: poet and fiction writer, University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Emily Wilson, 47: classicist and translator, University of Pennsylvania.