A specialist in plastic waste management, artists, musicians, computer scientists, and a poet-ornithologist who advocates for Black people in nature are among this year’s 25 winners of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s prestigious fellowships. The so-called "genius grants" honor discipline-bending and society-changing people whose work offers inspiration and insight. The Chicago-based foundation announced Wednesday that it increased the "no strings attached" award amount each receive from $625,000 to $800,000 over five years, the AP reports. The 2022 fellows include:
- Jennifer Carlson, 40, Tucson, Arizona, a sociologist whose research traces the evolution of gun culture in the US.
- Yejin Choi, 45, Seattle, a computer scientist who developed new ways to train computers to understand language and assess the intent of different kinds of communication.