CHICAGO (AP) – A soil scientist trying to end hunger in Africa, a nursing professor searching for better ways to treat elderly cancer patients and a writer who explains issues such as adoption and death in her children’s books were among 24 winners Sunday of this year’s $500,000
MacArthur Foundation “genius grants.”
As it has in previous years, the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation offered the awards to people in an array of fields, from a botanist to a blacksmith. Recipients may use the money as they wish.
“The central theme is creativity, and what the diversity of this class of fellows reaffirms is that creativity can be found in many places in our society,” said Jonathan F. Fanton, president of the foundation.
Fanton said the grants, first given out in 1981, have been awarded to people in a growing variety of fields in recent years as the foundation looks for “talent in unusual places.”
Among the latest MacArthur fellows is Pedro A. Sanchez, 62, a leader in international agroforestry who once led a team that dramatically improved the productivity of land in Brazil and did the same on the land of African farmers.
“The message it (the award) sends is it recognizes that this work is very important and crucial for eliminating hunger for the planet,” said Sanchez, who now heads the tropical agriculture program at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. “And that it’s possible to do so in an environmentally friendly way.”
Sanchez pioneered the use of leguminous trees to increase the nitrogen content in soil, doing away with some of the need for expensive chemical fertilizers.
For Sarah Kagan, 41, an associate professor for gerontological nursing at the University of Pennsylvania, the challenge is to change the way medical professionals approach and treat elderly cancer patients.
“We do have a societal inclination to talk past older adults,” said Kagan, who has written extensively on the issue, including a book, “Older Adults Coping with Cancer: Integrating Cancer into a Life Mostly Lived.”
“We also try to explain away older people’s physical reaction to things … saying that’s just about being old,” she said.
An award-winning writer of books for children and young adults, Angela Johnson has made a career of paying attention to the real lives of children.
“Kids have been adopted, their grandparents are dead or dying,” said Johnson, 42, of Kent, Ohio. “Things become demonized because we don’t talk about them.”
Other recipients include Loren Rieseberg, a botanist at Indiana University who is researching sunflowers to answer questions about how species originate.
Dr. Nawal Nour, 37, of Boston received a grant for her work directing a clinic she founded that offers physical and psychological treatment to African women who underwent circumcision in their homeland.
And Tom Joyce, a 46-year-old blacksmith from Santa Fe, N.M., was recognized for his work that includes abstract sculptures as well as functional objects such as a gate forged from scrap metal collected by local residents from the banks of the Rio Grande.
Some grant recipients said they did not know what they would do with the money, which will be distributed over five years. But many echoed Kagan, who said that the money will find its way into her work.
“It is the biggest honor,” Kagan said of the award. “And the biggest responsibility.”
AP-ES-10-04-03 1511EDT
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