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The John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation annually makes the awards as
"seed money for intellectual, social, and artistic endeavors,"
according to the organization. The grants are paid out over five
years.
This year's winners include Ta-Nehisi Coates, 39, whose
journalism for the Atlantic and book "Between the World and Me"
have provided context to a national debate on racism and police
violence raging in response to numerous high-profile police
killings of unarmed black people over the last year.
"These 24 delightfully diverse MacArthur Fellows are shedding
light and making progress on critical issues, pushing the
boundaries of their fields, and improving our world in
imaginative, unexpected ways," MacArthur President Julia Stasch
said in a statement.
The group, which began its program in 1981 to provide money to
help fund the specialized work of ambitious free-thinkers, uses
anonymous nominators and selection committees to decide who gets
the grants.
Recipients, who usually do not know they are being considered
unless they win, join 918 other MacArthur fellows, the group
said.
Among the 2015 winners are:
* Michelle Dorrance, 36, who founded and is the artistic
director of Dorrance Dance in New York City. The foundation
called her a "a tap dancer and choreographer breathing new life
into a uniquely American art form."
* Basil Twist, 46, a puppetry artist and director in New York
City whose theatrical works "explore the boundaries between the
animate and inanimate, the abstract and the figurative."
* Peidong Yang, 44, whose work on inorganic chemistry at the
University of California, Berkeley, is "transforming the field
of semiconductor nanowires and nanowire photonics and enabling
wide-ranging practical applications."
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco)
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