NPR: Twenty-six creators and thinkers drawn from a vast array of fields just got a big financial boost — and an even bigger name to add to their résumés. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation unveiled the winners of this year's MacArthur fellowships — often better known as the "genius" grants — recognizing the host of artists and scholars for their creativity and potential.
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Articles and programs like these give me hope for the world. Some of the most rewarding fields and projects in the world do not give their rewards in monetary form, and often it is often left to the researcher themselves to pick up that slack. But the MacArthur grants lift a gigantic burden off of the backs of those who receive the award; the grants give breathing room, and a new sense of purpose and responsibility. Reading the short blurbs about the projects these recipients are working on gives me a sense of awe and wonder for the future of research and creative development. I also love the diversity of the fields in which the ‘geniuses’ are working- everything from legal scholars to marine biologists to theatre artists are featured and celebrated, and with the grants, researchers will be able to push the boundaries of every field to create a better future.
I love the ability for something like the MacArthur 'Genius' Grant to bring together such a large number of people from such a variety of fields to be highlighted and appreciated. It goes back to the idea of the different ranges of knowledge people can have and how valuable all of those different kinds of knowledge are to the world. All the work that all these people are doing are contributing overall to improving the society that we are currently living in but they’re functioning in many different spheres. There is a theatre artist on this list as well as a theoretical geophysicist and cartoonist and it’s great to be able to appreciate them as a whole. As the article also mention this work being done is extremely important and a lot of work they do isn’t as profitable as other sectors like technology so getting the financial boost of the prize is very helpful for them. I was wishing for a little more information about each individual because just the sentence over-viewing didn’t really allow me to fully understand the work with any real meaning.
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