The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and 30 individuals working in any field who have shown "extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction" and are citizens or residents of the United States.
According to the foundation's website, "the fellowship is not a reward for past accomplishments but rather an investment in a person's originality, insight, and potential", but it also says such potential is "based on a track record of significant accomplishments". The amount of the prize is $800,000 paid over five years in quarterly installments. Previously, it was $625,000. This figure was increased from $500,000 in 2013 upon the release of a review of the MacArthur Fellows Program. The award has been called "one of the most significant awards that is truly 'no strings attached.
The program does not accept applications. Anonymous and confidential nominations are invited by the foundation and reviewed by an anonymous and confidential selection committee of about a dozen people. The committee reviews all nominees and recommends recipients to the president and board of directors. Most new fellows learn of their nomination and award upon receiving a congratulatory phone call. MacArthur Fellow Jim Collins described this experience in an editorial column of The New York Times.
Recipients , since the award's inception in 1981, 1,175 people have been named MacArthur Fellows, ranging in age from 18 to 82.
In the five broad categories defined by the foundation, the breakdown for recipient focus is as follows: Arts 336; Humanities 170; Public Issues 257; STEM 335; and Social Sciences 120.
1981
A. R. Ammons, poet Joseph Brodsky, poet John Cairns, molecular biologist Gregory V. Chudnovsky, mathematician Joel E. Cohen, population biologist Robert Coles, child psychiatrist Richard Critchfield, essayist Shelly Errington, cultural anthropologist Howard Gardner, psychologist Henry Louis Gates Jr., literary critic John Gaventa, sociologist Michael Ghiselin, evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist Ian Graham, archaeologist David Hawkins, philosopher John P. Holdren, arms control and energy analyst Ada Louise Huxtable, architectural critic and historian John Imbrie, climatologist Robert Kates, geographer Raphael Carl Lee, surgeon Elma Lewis, arts educator Cormac McCarthy, writer Barbara McClintock, geneticist James Alan McPherson, short story writer and essayist Roy P. Mottahedeh, historian Richard C. Mulligan, molecular biologist Douglas D. Osheroff, physicist Elaine H. Pagels, historian of religion David Pingree, historian of science Paul G. Richards, seismologist Robert Root-Bernstein, biologist and historian of science Richard Rorty, philosopher Lawrence Rosen, attorney and anthropologist Carl Emil Schorske, intellectual historian Leslie Marmon Silko, writer Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr., astrophysicist Derek Walcott, poet and playwright Robert Penn Warren, poet, novelist, and literary critic Stephen Wolfram, computer scientist and physicist Michael Woodford, economist George Zweig, physicist and neurobiologist
1982
Fouad Ajami, political scientist Charles A. Bigelow, type designer Peter Robert Lamont Brown, historian Robert Darnton, European historian Persi Diaconis, statistician William Gaddis, novelist Ved Mehta, writer Bob Moses, educator and philosopher Richard A. Muller, geologist and astrophysicist Conlon Nancarrow, composer Alfonso Ortiz, cultural anthropologist Francesca Rochberg, Assyriologist and historian of science Charles Sabel, political scientist and legal scholar Ralph Shapey, composer and conductor Michael Silverstein, linguist Randolph Whitfield Jr., ophthalmologist Frank Wilczek, physicist Frederick Wiseman, documentary filmmaker Edward Witten, physicist, creator of the M-Theory
1983
R. Stephen Berry, physical chemist Seweryn Bialer, political scientist William C. Clark, ecologist and environmental policy analyst Philip D. Curtin, historian of Africa William H. Durham, biological anthropologist Bradley Efron, statistician David L. Felten, neuroscientist Randall W. Forsberg, political scientist and arms control strategist Alexander L. George, political scientist Shelomo Dov Goitein, medieval historian Mott T. Greene, historian of science James E. Gunn, astronomer Ramón A. Gutiérrez, historian John J. Hopfield, physicist and biologist Béla Julesz, psychologist William Kennedy, novelist Leszek Kołakowski, historian of philosophy and religion Sylvia A. Law, human rights lawyer Brad Leithauser, poet and writer Lawrence W. Levine, historian Ralph Manheim, translator Robert K. Merton, historian and sociologist of science Walter F. Morris Jr., cultural preservationist Charles S. Peskin, mathematician and physiologist A.K. Ramanujan, poet, translator, and literary scholar Alice M. Rivlin, economist and policy analyst Julia Robinson, mathematician John Sayles, filmmaker and writer Richard M. Schoen, mathematician Peter Sellars, theater and opera director Karen K. Uhlenbeck, mathematician Adrian Wilson, book designer, printer, and book historian Irene J. Winter, art historian and archaeologist Mark S. Wrighton, chemist
1984
George W. Archibald, ornithologist Shelly Bernstein, pediatric hematologist Peter J. Bickel, statistician Ernesto J. Cortes Jr., community organizer William Drayton, public service innovator Sidney Drell, physicist and arms policy analyst Mitchell J. Feigenbaum, mathematical physicist Michael H. Freedman, mathematician Curtis G. Hames, family physician Robert Hass, poet, critic, and translator Shirley Heath, linguistic anthropologist J. Bryan Hehir, religion and foreign policy scholar Bette Howland, writer and literary critic Bill Irwin, clown, writer, and performance artist Robert Irwin, light and space artist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, novelist and screenwriter Fritz John, mathematician Galway Kinnell, poet Henry Kraus, labor and art historian Paul Oskar Kristeller, intellectual historian and philosopher Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, educator Heather Lechtman, materials scientist and archaeologist Michael Lerner, public health leader Andrew W. Lewis, medieval historian Arnold J. Mandell, neuroscientist and psychiatrist Peter Mathews, archaeologist and epigrapher Matthew Meselson, geneticist and arms control analyst David R. Nelson, physicist Beaumont Newhall, historian of photography Roger S. Payne, zoologist and conservationist Michael Piore, economist Edward V. Roberts, disability rights leader Judith N. Shklar, political philosopher Charles Simic, poet, translator, and essayist Elliot Sperling, Tibetan studies scholar David Stuart, linguist and epigrapher Frank Sulloway, psychologist John E. Toews, intellectual historian Alar Toomre, astronomer and mathematician James Turrell, light sculptor Amos Tversky, cognitive scientist J. Kirk Varnedoe, art historian Bret Wallach, geographer Jay Weiss, psychologist Arthur Winfree, physiologist and mathematician Carl R. Woese, molecular biologist Billie Young, community development leader
1985
Joan Abrahamson, community development leader John Ashbery, poet John F. Benton, medieval historian Harold Bloom, literary critic Valery Chalidze, physicist and human rights organizer William Cronon, environmental historian Merce Cunningham, choreographer Jared Diamond, environmental historian and geographer Marian Wright Edelman, Children's Defense Fund founder Morton Halperin, political scientist Robert M. Hayes, lawyer and human rights leader Edwin Hutchins, cognitive scientist Sam Maloof, professional woodworker and furniture maker Andrew McGuire, trauma prevention specialist Patrick Noonan, conservationist George Oster, mathematical biologist Thomas G. Palaima, classicist Peter Raven, botanist Jane S. Richardson, biochemist Gregory Schopen, historian of religion Franklin Stahl, geneticist J. Richard Steffy, nautical archaeologist Ellen Stewart, theater director Paul Taylor, choreographer, dance company founder Shing-Tung Yau, mathematician
1986
Paul Adams, neurobiologist Milton Babbitt, composer and music theorist Christopher Beckwith, philologist Richard Benson, photographer Lester R. Brown, agricultural economist Caroline Bynum, medieval historian William A. Christian, historian of religion Nancy Farriss, historian Benedict Gross, mathematician Daryl Hine, poet and translator John Robert Horner, paleobiologist Thomas C. Joe, social policy analyst David Keightley, historian and sinologist Albert J. Libchaber, physicist David C. Page, molecular geneticist George Perle, composer and music theorist James Randi, magician David Rudovsky, civil rights lawyer Robert Shapley, neurophysiologist Leo Steinberg, art historian Richard P. Turco, atmospheric scientist Thomas Whiteside, journalist Allan C. Wilson, biochemist Jay Wright, poet and playwright Charles Wuorinen, composer
1987
Walter Abish, writer Robert Axelrod, political scientist Robert F. Coleman, mathematician Douglas Crase, poet Daniel Friedan, physicist David Gross, physicist Ira Herskowitz, molecular geneticist Irving Howe, literary and social critic Wesley Charles Jacobs Jr., rural planner Peter Jeffery, musicologist Horace Freeland Judson, historian of science Stuart Alan Kauffman, evolutionary biologist Richard Kenney, poet Eric Lander, geneticist and mathematician Michael Malin, geologist and planetary scientist Deborah W. Meier, education reform leader Arnaldo Dante Momigliano, historian David Mumford, mathematician Tina Rosenberg, journalist David Rumelhart, cognitive scientist and psychologist Robert Morris Sapolsky, neuroendocrinologist and primatologist Meyer Schapiro, art historian John H. Schwarz, physicist Jon Seger, evolutionary ecologist Stephen Shenker, physicist David Dean Shulman, historian of religion Muriel S. Snowden, community organizer Mark Strand, poet and writer May Swenson, poet Huỳnh Sanh Thông, translator and editor William Julius Wilson, sociologist Richard Wrangham, primate ethologist
1988
Charles Archambeau, geophysicist Michael Baxandall, art historian Ruth Behar, cultural anthropologist Ran Blake, composer and pianist Charles Burnett, filmmaker Philip James DeVries, insect biologist Andre Dubus, writer Helen T. Edwards, physicist Jon H. Else, documentary filmmaker John G. Fleagle, primatologist and paleontologist Cornell H. Fleischer, Middle Eastern historian Getatchew Haile, philologist and linguist Raymond Jeanloz, geophysicist Marvin Philip Kahl, zoologist Naomi Pierce, biologist Thomas Pynchon, novelist Stephen J. Pyne, environmental historian Max Roach, drummer and jazz composer Hipolito (Paul) Roldan, community developer Anna Curtenius Roosevelt, archaeologist David Alan Rosenberg, military historian Susan Irene Rotroff, archaeologist Bruce Schwartz, figurative sculptor and puppeteer Robert Shaw, physicist Jonathan Spence, historian Noel M. Swerdlow, historian of science Gary A. Tomlinson, musicologist Alan Walker, paleontologist Eddie Williams, policy analyst and civil rights leader Rita P. Wright, archaeologist Garth Youngberg, agriculturalist
1989
Anthony Amsterdam, attorney and legal scholar Byllye Avery, women's healthcare leader Alvin Bronstein, human rights lawyer Leo Buss, evolutionary biologist Jay Cantor, writer George Davis, environmental policy analyst Allen Grossman, poet John Harbison, composer and conductor Keith Hefner, journalist and educator Ralf Hotchkiss, rehabilitation engineer John Rice Irwin, curator and cultural preservationist Daniel Janzen, ecologist Bernice Johnson Reagon, music historian, composer, and vocalist Aaron Lansky, cultural preservationist Jennifer Moody, archaeologist and anthropologist Errol Morris, filmmaker Vivian Paley, educator and writer Richard Powers, novelist Ferenc Miszlivetz, sociologist and historian