This week, some very special individuals from a wide array of fields received phone calls informing them they had been named recipients of a 2010 'Genius Grant' from John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation -- $500,000 in "no strings attached" support over the next five years. This is a pretty big deal. Among the twenty-three fellows:
Yiyun Li
Fiction Writer
Assistant Professor
Department of English
University of California, Davis
Davis, California
Age: 37
Fiction Writer dramatizing the myriad effects of late-twentieth-century China's sweeping social changes in a deeply moving, yet quietly understated, style of storytelling.
Dawn Song
Computer Security Specialist
Associate Professor
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Age: 35
Computer Security Specialist exploring the deep interactions among software, hardware, and networks to increase the stability of computer systems vulnerable to remote attack or interference.
Wow. Some day, I would like to receive $500,000 just for being awesome.
*
