Two scholars connected with the University were awarded coveted MacArthur fellowships this year, commonly known as "genius grants" because they fund unrestricted creative research by the recipients.
Michael Elowitz GS '99 and Claire Kremen, an assistant ecology and evolutionary biology professor from 2001 to 2005, were among the 24 winners announced Tuesday. The $500,000 award is given by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Neither Elowitz nor Kremen has any obligation to the MacArthur Foundation or to their respective universities, and there are no restrictions on the use of their prize money, which they will receive on a quarterly basis over five years.
"We're betting on their doing great and wonderful things," said Daniel Socolow, director of the MacArthur Fellows Program.
His brother, Robert Socolow, is a professor in Princeton's mechanical and aerospace engineering department.
Kremen, an assistant professor of environmental science at UC-Berkeley, holds degrees from Stanford and Duke. She is "bold, novel, imaginative and thorough [in her] studies of major issues in conservation biology," EEB professor Henry Horn, who worked with her during her stint at the University, said in an email.
Kremen has worked on establishing protected reserves in Madagascar and also analyzes the behavior patterns of bees, studying how natural pollinators contribute to the development of agriculture.
"It was a tragedy that she left Princeton for Berkeley," Andrew Dobson, another University colleague, said in an email. "Her MacArthur was well deserved — she is a true original and has proved irreplaceable at Princeton."
A molecular biologist, Elowitz focuses his research on genes, examining how they respond to external stimuli and how they interact with each other to maintain a constant state. He received his bachelor's degree from UC-Berkeley in 1992 and is currently an assistant professor of biology and applied physics at Caltech.
He was traveling in Greece as of last night and could not be reached for comment.
The MacArthur Foundation chooses its grant recipients from among thousands of researchers, who are not informed of their candidacy. Winners only learned they were being considered for the award upon receiving the congratulatory phone call telling them they won.
"If we've done our job well, they have no idea we've been looking at them," Socolow said.
The Foundation has assets of more than $6 billion and gives out grants and program-related investments of approximately $225 million annually.
As many as 2,000 people are invited by the program to serve as nominators for the selection process. The program then collects a dossier on each nominee, and narrows the pool of potential winners to 24 over the course of the year, Socolow said. The only required criterion for the award is creativity.
"These people are very different — different ages, working in every field imaginable, from blacksmithing and farming to astrophysics and everything in between," Socolow said.
But, he added, all winners have the same reaction after receiving the phone call telling them of their selection. "Everybody is blown away," he said, "full of joy and wonder, and glee, and beginning to dream of the possibilities."
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