The MacArthur Foundation announced the Class of 2024 MacArthur Fellows on Tuesday, October 1. MacArthur Fellowships, often called ‘genius grants,’ provide each recipient with an $800,000 stipend, a "no-strings-attached award to extraordinarily talented and creative individuals as an investment in their potential," according to the MacArthur Foundation website.
Of the five University of California alums selected this year, two are graduates of UC Berkeley’s College of Letters & Science: Ruha Benjamin and Keivan G. Stassun.
Ruha Benjamin, M.A. '04 Sociology, Ph.D. '08 Sociology
Transdisciplinary Scholar & Writer
Ruha Benjamin was recognized by the MacArthur Foundation for demonstrating “the importance of imagination and grassroots activism in shaping social policies and cultural practices.” Her research has examined the relationship between science and society, bringing to light “how advances in science, medicine, and technology reflect and reproduce social inequality.”
Her more recent written works draw from both social analysis and her own personal experience. Benjamin has been a strong advocate for the power of grassroots initiatives and encourages readers to push back against systems of oppression. She is also the founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab, where she “works with students, organizers, and artists to identify, challenge, and transform tech-mediated harms.”
According to the announcement from Berkeley Social Sciences, Benjamin joins two other genius grant fellows from Berkeley Sociology: Professor Loïc Wacqant (MacArthur Class of 1997) and Arizona State University Professor Jennifer Carlson (Class of 2022), who received her Ph.D. in sociology from Berkeley. Professor Wacquant remarked, “From her early days in graduate school, Ruha shone like an intellectual diamond. She exemplifies the best of Berkeley Sociology: big questions, bold thinking, rigorous research and a wide public impact. What more could we ask for?”
Keivan G. Stassun, A.B. '94 Astronomy, A.B. '94 Physics
Science Educator and Astronomer
Stassun was recognized by the MacArthur Foundation for his efforts to expand opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and careers for underrepresented populations. “Even as efforts toward diversity and inclusion in higher education are being questioned, progress in science and technology continue to depend crucially on the engagement of human talent and creativity it all of its manifestations, as it always has," said Stassun. "It is imperative for progress in science and engineering that we more fully tap into the human diversity of mind, which means also learning how to more fully include neurodiversity in scientific discovery."
Stassun credits his science education at UC Berkeley as foundational for his career. "Astronomy faculty members including David Cudaback and Carl Heiles were central to creating a learning environment that encouraged creativity and helped form my identity as a scientist. Professor Gibor Basri took me under his wing as a research mentee and opened doors for me into graduate school and into the world of diversity and inclusion efforts,” said Stassun. “Graduate student TAs in the department were also instrumental, including Daniel Stern, with whom I now have the privilege of collaborating with on the NASA Ultraviolet Explorer mission. And fellow undergraduate physics and astronomy majors who were my peer mentors, study partners, and in some cases lifelong friends, like Robyn Millan who is now an astrophysicist at Dartmouth and co-chair of the National Academy of Sciences Decadal Survey for Heliophysics, and with whom I still get to interact with through the Space Studies Board!”
Stassun joined the faculty of Vanderbilt University in 2003 and is currently the Stevenson Endowed Professor of Physics & Astronomy with joint appointments in the School of Engineering and the Owen Graduate School of Management. He is a founding co-director of the Fisk-Vanderbilt Master’s-to-PhD Bridge Program, which brings graduate students from the historically Black Fisk University to study at Vanderbilt University, serving as a model for advancing science by expanding access to it. In 2018, Stassun founded the Frist Center for Autism and Innovation, which strives to help neurodiverse individuals find meaningful employment. As noted by the MacArthur Foundation, “Stassun’s efforts to nurture the unique strengths of all individuals are unleashing human potential and bringing a wider range of perspectives and insights into the STEM workforce.”
Stassun told Berkeley Letters & Science, "This recognition comes just as the "neurodiversity movement" has arrived and it shines a needed spotlight on efforts to provide access to meaningful careers in science and technology for autistic and other neurodiverse people.”