Meet The 2015 MacArthur Fellows

Once a year, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announces its roster of MacArthur Fellows, a designation frequently referred to as the “Genius Grant.” The fellowship bestows upon its recipients a $625,000 prize, along with an accolade that manages to celebrate innovative minds across fields, from science to poetry to painting, and just about everything in between. 

This year, the list of MacArthur Fellows ranges from a celebrated writer to an environmental advocate to an inorganic chemist, varying in age from 33 to 72 years old. In total, there are 15 men and nine women represented. The recipients were aware of their award before the 12 a.m. announcement by the MacArthur Foundation this Tuesday. Nonetheless, the winners are celebrating publicly now that the news is out.

“These 24 delightfully diverse MacArthur Fellows are shedding light and making progress on critical issues, pushing the boundaries of their fields, and improving our world in imaginative, unexpected ways,” MacArthur President Julia Stasch explains on the MacArthur Foundation website. “Their work, their commitment, and their creativity inspire us all.”

The MacArthur Fellowship, founded in 1978, is given out annually to a group of high-achieving individuals in disciplines as diverse as dance, computer science and adaptive design. What was once a $50,000 award has since morphed into a six-figure prize. Past winners include author Cormac McCarthy, photographer Cindy Sherman and astrophysicist Joseph Taylor.

Check out a full-list of the 2015 Fellows below.

1. Patrick Awuah (Education Entrepreneur) 

The 50-year-old founder and president of Ashesi University College was chosen for his efforts in building a new model of higher education in his home country of Ghana. He was an engineer and program manager at Microsoft before he began the university in 2002.

2. Kartik Chandran (Environmental Engineer)

An associate professor in the Earth and Environmental Department of Columbia University, the 41-year-old New York native integrates microbial ecology, molecular biology and engineering to update the process of wastewater treatment.

3. Ta-Nehisis Coates (Journalist)

The MacArthur Foundation praised the 39-year-old national correspondent at The Atlantic in Washington, D.C., for bringing “personal reflection and historical scholarship to bear on America’s most contested issues,” namely through his longform essay titled “The Case for Reparations,” as well as his two books The Beautiful Struggle and Between the World and Me.

4. Gary Cohen (Environmental Health Advocate)

The 59-year-old co-founder and president of Health Care Without Harm focuses on the environmental impact of American hospitals. The Virginia resident engages environmental scientists, medical professionals and institutions in discussions of sustainability and climate change as they are related to health care.

5. Matthew Desmond (Urban Sociologist)

The 35-year-old associate professor of sociology and social studies at Harvard University studies the impact of eviction on the lives of the urban poor. The Massachusetts-based creator of the Milwaukee Area Renters Study looks specifically at the low-income rental market in the largest city in Wisconsin, noting “that households headed by women are more likely to face eviction than men, resulting in deleterious long-term effects much like those caused by high rates of incarceration among low-income African American men.”

6. William Dichtel (Chemist)

A 37-year-old associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University in New York, he is celebrated for his work assembling molecules into high surface-area networks that are beneficial in the fields of electronics, optics and energy storage.

7. Michelle Dorrance (Tap Dancer and Choreographer)

The 36-year-old founder and artistic director of Dorrance Dance in New York has been heralded for combining traditions from tap dance with the choreographic nuances of contemporary dance in works like “SOUNDspace,” “The Blues Project,” and “ETM: The Initial Approach.” 

8. Nicole Eisenman (Painter)

The 50-year-old painter from New York explores themes like gender and sexuality, family dynamics, and the inequalities of wealth and power in her narrative and rhetorical works that span from painting and sculpture to drawing and printmaking.

9. LaToya Ruby Frazier (Photographer and Video Artist)

The 33-year-old assistant professor of photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago mixes self-portraiture with social narrative to construct visual autobiographies that emphasize the connection between her notions of “self” and “space.”

10. Ben Lerner (Writer)

A 36-year-old professor in the Department of English at City University of New York, Brooklyn College, Lerner’s work moves between fiction and nonfiction in an attempt to investigate the “relevance of art and the artist to modern culture.”

11. Mimi Lien (Set Designer)

The 39-year-old set designer from New York creates architecturally dramatic sets for theater, opera and dance, such as her full-scale Tsarist Russian salon in “Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.”

12. Lin-Manuel Miranda (Playwright, Composer and Performer)

The 35-year-old playwright, composer and performer from New York has been honored for expanding the possibilities of musical theater for individuals and communities new to Broadway stages, particularly in his work “In The Heights,” which tells the story of an immigrant community losing its neighborhood to gentrification.

13. Dimitri Nakassis (Classicist)

An associate professor of in the Department of Classics at the University of Toronto, the 40-year-old classicist is transforming our understanding of prehistoric Greek societies, challenging the long-held view that Late Bronze Age Mycenaean palatial society (1400 to 1200 BC) was a highly centralized oligarchy, distinct from the democratic city-states of classical Greece.

14. John November (Computational Biologist)

The 37-year-old associate professor of human genetics at the University of Chicago is discovering news ways of viewing human evolutionary history, population structure and migration, and the etiology of genetic diseases.

15. Christopher Ré (Computer Scientist)

The 36-year-old assistant professor of computer science at Stanford University is “democratizing” big data analytics using his training in databases and expertise in machine learning to ultimately create an inference engine dubbed DeepDive.

16. Marina Rustow (Historian)

The 46-year-old professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University in New Jersey is notable for her work using the Cairo Geniza texts to draw new conclusions about Jewish life in the medieval Middle East.

17. Juan Salgado (Community Leader)

The 46-year-old president and CEO of Instituto del Progreso Latina in Chicago is praised for his work helping low-income immigrants succeed in the workplace and participate in education programs that equip workers with the skills they need for higher-paying employment.

18. Beth Stevens (Neuroscientist)

The 45-year-old assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts studies microglial cells and the origins of adult neurological diseases.

19. Lorenz Studer (Stem Cell Biologist)

Studer is the 49-year-old director of the Center for Stem Cell Biology at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York who’s credited with a breakthrough in dopaminergic neurons that could provide treatment for Parkinson’s disease, and possibly other neurodegenerative conditions.

20. Alex Truesdell (Adaptive Designer and Fabricator)

A 59-year-old executive director and founder of Adaptive Design Association, Inc., the New York resident creates low-tech and affordable tools that help children with disabilities in everyday activities in their homes, schools and communities.

21. Basil Twist (Puppetry Artist and Director)

The 46-year-old puppetry artist from New York is known for his 1998 production, “Symphonie Fantastique,” which consisted of an hour-long performance of feathers, glitter, plastics, vinyl, mirrors, slides, dyes, blacklight, overhead projections, air bubbles, and latex fishing lures.

22. Ellen Bryant Voigt (Poet)

 The 72-year-old poet from Virginia has published eight collections of poetry that challenge “will and fate and the life cycles of the natural world while exploring the expressive potential of both lyric and narrative elements.”

23. Heidi Williams (Economist)

The 34-year-old assistant professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology focuses on the causes and effects of innovation within health care markets, revealing how the timing and nature of intellectual property restrictions can affect change in the field.

24. Peidong Yang (Inorganic Chemist)

The 44-year-old Professor of Energy in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, specializes in semiconductor nanowires and their practical applications, such as in the conversion of waste heat into electricity.

 

Also on HuffPost:

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Matt Damon clarifies comments about gay actors on Ellen

Matt Damon has said his recent comments about gay actors were taken out of context.

The 44-year-old Martian star told Ellen DeGeneres on her talk show that he never said gay actors should stay in the closet.

‘I was just trying to say actors are more effective when they’re a mystery,’ he said. ‘And somebody picked it up and said I said gay actors should get back in the closet.

‘It’s stupid but it is painful when things get said that you don’t believe. And then it gets represented that that’s what you believe because in the blogosphere there’s no real penalty for just taking the ball and running with it. You’re just trying to get people to click onto your thing.’

The openly gay host then quipped: ‘It shocks me that you and Ben are not gay. But if you want to deny it and keep your mystery and your marriage and your daughters…’

Damon had told the Guardian that as an actor, ‘people shouldn’t know anything about your sexuality because that’s one of the mysteries that you should be able to play.’

He also cited Rupert Everett as an example of how coming out could hurt an actor’s career.

Watch a clip from the interview, which will air on Tuesday night, below:

The post Matt Damon clarifies comments about gay actors on Ellen appeared first on Gay Star News.

Darren Wee

www.gaystarnews.com/article/matt-damon-clarifies-comments-about-gay-actors-on-ellen/

John McNeill, Catholic Advocate for LGBT Rights, Dead at 90

John McNeill, a Roman Catholic theologian and priest who fought for acceptance of LGBT people in his church even though it resulted in his expulsion from the Jesuit order, has died at age 90.

McNeill died Tuesday while in hospice care in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., The New York Times reports. His death was announced by the LGBT Catholic group DignityUSA; he had helped found Dignity’s New York chapter in 1972.

He authored the 1976 book The Church and the Homosexual, in which “he argued that a stable, loving same-sex relationship was just as moral, and just as godly, as a heterosexual one and should be acknowledged as such by church leaders,” the Times reports. The Vatican initially gave its stamp of approval to the book but soon withdrew it, as McNeill had come out as gay on national TV and become widely known as a gay rights activist.

McNeill came out in an interview with Tom Brokaw in 1976 on the Today show. “He’s the first priest to come out on national television,” Brendan Fay, who made a 2011 documentary film about McNeill, Taking a Chance on God, told the Times.

At the time, McNeill described himself as celibate, in keeping with his priestly vows, but he was actually living with Charles Chiarelli, his partner since 1965, the paper notes.

McNeill had been ministering to gay and lesbian Catholics and advocating for gay rights since the early 1970s, but with his increasing fame, in 1977 the Vatican ordered him “not to speak or write publicly on the subject,” the Times reports. He complied, although he privately continued his ministry to gays and lesbians.

In the 1980s, motivated by the AIDS epidemic and an increasingly hard-line antigay stance from the Vatican, he decided he had to speak out. He publicly condemned a 1986 Vatican document that called homosexuality “a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil,” and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a high-ranking Vatican official who would later become Pope Benedict XVI, “responded by ordering him to keep silent on the subject, and to cease his pastoral work with gays and lesbians, or risk expulsion from his order,” as the Times puts it.

McNeill opted for expulsion from the Jesuits, the order in which he had been ordained a priest in 1959. He technically remained a priest but could perform few duties related to the position. He devoted himself to a psychotherapy practice focused on LGBT clients, along with activism, teaching, and writing. In 1987, the year of his expulsion, he was grand marshal of New York City’s Pride parade.

Many LGBT rights advocates praised McNeill’s efforts. “It is not an overstatement to say that any of the pastoral, political, theological, and practical advances that LGBT Catholics have made in recent years could only have been brought about because of John’s groundbreaking work,” Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, told the National Catholic Reporter.

“John was really the first major prophet of the Catholic LGBT movement,” noted a statement from DignityUSA executive director Marianne Duddy-Burke. “Every DignityUSA president has consulted him for insights into the emerging issues of the Catholic LGBT community. His groundbreaking bravery in daring to question official church doctrine was truly liberating to so many people.”

“He was a gay man who was a Jesuit priest — and being a gay man who is a Jesuit priest, by the way, is not an unusual thing,” Mary E. Hunt, a Catholic feminist theologian and friend of McNeill’s, told the Times. “The difference is that John McNeill was honest, and he was honest early. And being honest early meant that he paid a large price.”

McNeill was motivated to go into the priesthood partly because of his experiences as a prisoner of war in Nazi Germany in World War II — starving, he was furtively given food by a fellow captive who made the sign of the cross. He continued to consider himself a priest until the end of his life. During his final hospital stay, he asked that a sign be posted on the door of his room reading, “I am a Catholic priest.”

He is survived by Chiarelli, whom he married in 2008 in Toronto, and several nieces and nephews. His family has established a memorial fund to preserve his writings for use by scholars and activists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trudy Ring

www.advocate.com/religion/2015/9/28/john-mcneill-catholic-advocate-lgbt-rights-dead-90

Mugabe shocks UN: ‘We are not gays’

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe shocked the UN General Assembly on Monday (28 September) when he announced he and his countrymen ‘are not gays.’

The 91-year-old, who once said LGBTI people are ‘worse than dogs and pigs,’ used his evening address as an opportunity to rant against ‘new rights.’

‘Respecting and upholding human rights is the obligation of all states and is enshrined in the United Nations charter,’ he told world leaders in New York, including US President Barack Obama, China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

‘Nowhere does the charter abrogate the right of some to sit in judgment over others.’

Mugabe continued: ‘In that regard, we reject the politicization of this important issue and the application of double standards to victimize those who dare think and act independently of the self-anointed prefects of our time.

‘We equally reject attempts to prescribe “new rights” that are contrary to our values, norms, traditions, and beliefs.’

‘We are not gays,’ he then said matter of factly to a mixture of gasps, laughter and applause.

‘Cooperation and respect for each other will advance the cause of human rights worldwide. Confrontation, vilification and double-standards will not.’

Gay sex is illegal in Zimbabwe and laws passed in 2006 criminalize any actions perceived as homosexual – it is a criminal offense for two people of the same sex to hold hands, hug, or kiss in the African country.

Mugabe’s comments a day after the Saudi foreign minister told the UN his country had the right not to follow any ‘deviations’ in its definition of sex and family.

Watch the speech below:

The post Mugabe shocks UN: ‘We are not gays’ appeared first on Gay Star News.

Darren Wee

www.gaystarnews.com/article/mugabe-shocks-un-we-are-not-gays/