MacArthur genius grants: Teacher, jazz pianist among 23 winners Learning Process

MacArthur genius grants: Teacher, jazz pianist among 23 winners

Written on September 26, 2010 – 4:18 am | by Christopher Tulloch

Some fellows work in fields of math, science and engineering:

• Amir Abo-Shaeer, a physics teacher at Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, Calif.

• Kelly Benoit-Bird, a marine biologist and professor at Oregon State University.

• Drew Berry, a biomedical animator at Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia.

• Carlos D. Bustamante, a population geneticist and professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif.

• John Dabiri, a biophysicist and associate professor at California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.

• Michal Lipson, an optical physicist and associate professor at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.

• Nergis Mavalvala, a quantum astrophysicist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.

• Marla Spivak, an entomologist and professor a the University of Minnesota, St. Paul

Abo-Shaeer is the first high school teacher to be a MacArthur Fellow. He created project-based engineering classes and curriculum for his high school.

“Project-based learning is something kids can’t get anywhere else. When they come here, it’s experienced-based learning they can’t get from the Internet,” says Abo-Shaeer.

Other fellows work in areas of the arts, the economy and many other fields:

• Nicholas Benson, a stone carver and owner and creative director of The John Stevens Shop, Newport, R.I.

• Matthew Carter, a typographer and co-founder and principal of Carter & Cone Type, Cambridge, Mass.

• David Cromer of Chicago, a theater director.

• Shannon Lee Dawdy, anthropologist and assistant professor at the University of Chicago.

• Annette Gordon-Reed, an American historian and law professor at Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Mass.

• Yiyun Li, a fiction writer and assistant professor at the University of California, Davis.

• Jason Moran, a jazz pianist and composer of New York.

• Carol Padden, a sign language linguist and communications professor at the University of California, San Diego.

• Jorge Pardo, an installation artist of Los Angeles.

• Sebastian Ruth, a violist, music educator and founder and executive artistic director of Community MusicWorks of Providence

• Emmanuel Saez, an economist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

• David Simon, author, screenwriter and producer, Baltimore.

• Dawn Song, a computer security specialist and associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

• Elizabeth Turk of Santa Ana, Calif., a sculptor.

• Jessie Little Doe Baird, indigenous language preservationist and co-founder and director of Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project of Mashpee, Mass.

Padden, who is deaf, studies the linguistics of sign language, various types of sign language and how sign language is developed.

She said, through a sign language translator via telephone, that she could use her fellowship funding to create a fun artificial sign language — “something of the Star Trek line.”

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