CHICAGO — A newspaper reporter who refuses to forget decades-old murders and a law professor trying to get people to forget the way they think about severe mental illness are among 24 recipients of this year’s MacArthur Foundation “genius grants.” The $500,000 fellowships were announced Tuesday by the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
While recipients can spend the money however they like, the foundation said the selections were made as much for what the scientists, artists and others might achieve as much as for what they’ve already done.
As in previous years, a wide variety of fields are represented on the list of recipients, including arts and sciences. There are a novelist and an applied physicist, a photojournalist and a molecular biologist, a painter and a biochemist, physicians and a short-story writer, a bridge engineer and a poet.
They are also people who are as close or closer to the beginning of their careers than they are to the end.
Of the 24 recipients, nine are still in their 30s, with 16 of them not yet 50 years old.
One after another, they say the money will help them continue what has become their life’s work.
Like Jerry Mitchell. A reporter with The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., Mitchell, 50, has spent two decades investigating civil-rights-era slayings, reminding readers that living among them were graying old men who had gotten away with murder.
It was Mitchell’s reporting on the 1963 murder of NAACP leader Medgar Evers that was instrumental in a new trial and conviction in 1994 for Byron de la Beckwith.
Today, Mitchell, who has continued his investigations, said the money will allow him to take a leave of absence from the paper to focus on the 1964 slayings of three civil-rights workers — the so-called “Mississippi Burning” case — and the four surviving suspects.
“People are dying,” said Mitchell, pointing to a fifth suspect in the 1964 slayings who died a few months ago. “The window is shutting pretty quickly.”
Elyn Saks, 53, said the money will allow her to continue educating people about the lives of those with severe mental illness, the kind of thing she did with a book about her own struggles with schizophrenia.
“I want to make a difference in how people see schizophrenia,” said Saks, a professor at the University of Southern California’s law school, whose memoir, “The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness,” came out in 2007.
To that end, she said she is working on a book about “high-functioning people with schizophrenia” such as herself. “I hope my book and other books like it give people more understanding and more sympathy and more empathy.”
List of 2009 MacArthur Foundation grant recipients
The following 24 fellows each will receive $500,000 over the next five years from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation:
Lynsey Addario, 35, photojournalist, Istanbul, Turkey. Creating a visual record of major conflicts and humanitarian crisis of the 21st century.
Maneesh Agrawala, 37, computer vision technologist, Berkeley, Calif. Designing visual interfaces that enhance ability to synthesize and comprehend complex, digital information.
Timothy Barrett, 59, Iowa City, Iowa. A papermaker and paper historian preserving and enhancing the art of hand-papermaking.
Mark Bradford, 47, Los Angeles. Mixed media artist who incorporates every day items from urban environments into abstract art.
Edwidge Danticat, 40, Miami. Novelist whose depictions of lives of Haitian immigrants chronicle the power of human resistance and endurance.
Rackstraw Downes, 69, New York. Painter whose minutely landscapes explore the intersection between the built and the natural world.
Esther Duflo, 36, Cambridge, Mass. Economist who analyzes poverty in South Asia and Africa and improving policies aid efforts designed to improve lives.
Deborah Eisenberg, 63, New York. Short story writer whose work depicts people coming to terms with personal relationships and struggling with the changing social context in which the relationships occur.
Lin He, 35, Berkeley, Calif. Molecular biologist advancing understanding of the role of microRNAs in the development of cancer.
Peter Huybers, 35, Cambridge, Mass. Climate scientist developing theories that explain climate change.
James Longley, 37, Seattle. Filmmaker who explores the historical and cultural dimensions of conflicts in the Middle East through the stories of ordinary families.
L. Mahadevan, 44, Cambridge, Mass. Applied mathematician investigating principles underlying the behavior of complex systems to address such questions as how flags flutter.
Heather McHugh, 61, Seattle. Poet who uses such wordplay as puns and rhymes in intricately patterned compositions.
Jerry Mitchell, 50, Jackson, Miss. Investigative newspaper reporter whose work has led to prosecutions in decades-old Civil Rights-era slayings.
Rebecca Onie, 32, Boston. Health services innovator who helped build a program links college volunteers with medical professionals to improve health care for low-income patients.
Richard Plum, 48, New Haven, Conn. Ornithologist who uses paleontology, developmental biology and optical physics to address questions about avian development, evolution and behavior.
John A. Rogers, 42, Urbana, Ill. An applied physicist who is a leader in developing flexible electronic devices.
Elyn Saks, 43, Los Angeles. A law school professor whose writings and her own struggles with schizophrenia challenges popular notions about severe mental illness.
Jill Seaman, 57, Old Fangak, Sudan. Physician devoted to delivering and improving treatment for infectious diseases in the remote, impoverished area of southern Sudan.
Beth Shapiro, 33, University Park, Pa. Evolutionary biologist whose research focuses on tracing the population history of recently extinct or threatened species.
Daniel Sigman, 40, Princeton, N.J. Biogeochemist examining the forces that have shaped the ocean’s fertility and earth’s climate over the past 2 million years.
Mary Tinetti, 58, New Haven, Conn. Geriatric physician focusing on accidents involving the elderly and identifying risk factors that contribute to morbidity due to falls.
Camille Utterback, 39, San Francisco. Artist who uses digital technologies to create works that redefine how viewers experience and interact with art.
Theodore Zoli, 43, New York. Bridge engineer who has made major technological advances to protect transportation infrastructure when there is a disaster.
