Five University of California alums are among the 22 winners of this year’s MacArthur fellowships. The awards, known as “genius grants,” recognize outstanding scholars, creators and activists whose talent and dedication reshape their fields and serve humanity.
The University of California is a common thread tying together generations of MacArthur fellows. Since the program’s 1981 founding, more than 100 UC alums and faculty have earned a spot on the illustrious roster from the MacArthur Foundation, which provides a $800,000, no-strings-attached grant to awardees. Our 2024 MacArthur fellows include an expert in how technology reproduces inequality, a writer uplifting Chicanx culture, an artist challenging colonial historical narratives, an astronomer creating opportunities for people underrepresented in STEM, and an activist expanding the visibility of people with disabilities.
Keep reading to learn more about these five extraordinary members of the UC community.
Ruha Benjamin
Transdisciplinary scholar and writer and alum of UC Berkeley and UCLA
“At the heart of all my work is the invitation to imagine and craft the worlds we cannot live without, just as we dismantle the ones we cannot live within.”
Ruha Benjamin’s writing and scholarship explores how advances in science, medicine, and technology reflect and reproduce social inequality. Her study of the California Stem Cell Initiative highlighted how socially marginalized groups are engaged for research but not guaranteed access to the treatments that result from that research. She’s also exposed the racial hierarchies embedded in seemingly neutral algorithms that harm individuals and communities. In recent work, she’s explored doula care for pregnant people and tenant organizers who demonstrate the power of grassroots initiatives that prioritize care over control, such as doulas focused on birth equity and tenant organizers fighting the legacy of redlining. Throughout her work, Benjamin deepens our understanding of the dangers that technological advancements pose to vulnerable populations while reimagining what counts as innovation and who gets to shape our collective future.
Benjamin earned a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and completed a postdoc at UCLA en route to her current role on faculty at Princeton University.
Juan Felipe Herrera
U.S. and California Poet Laureate, UCLA alum and professor emeritus at UC Riverside
“It was all about voice — finding my voice and giving my voice to others for the rest of my life. When I read poetry to children, adults, poets, I tell them my story and ‘You have a Beautiful Voice.’”
The former California and United States Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera uplifts Chicanx culture and amplifies shared experiences of solidarity and empowerment. His work in English and Spanish, spanning five decades, has chronicled the social and cultural dynamics of the Mexican-American community, from the activism of the Chicano Movement to the fraught politics of immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border today. In his 1974 publication “Rebozos of Love / We have Woven / Sudor de Pueblos / On our Back,” Herrera exalts ideas embedded in the Chicanx nationalist movement, incorporating pre-Columbian history, Indigenous deities, language, and artistic motifs. In “Every Day We Get More Illegal,” Herrera pays homage to working-class laborers and immigrants on the edges of society. In “Notes on the Assemblage” (2015), Herrera laments state violence inflicted upon citizens in the United States and elsewhere. He has also written children’s books, recounting fond memories of his childhood among migrant farmworkers in California’s Central Valley in the picture book “Calling the Doves / El canto de las palomas” (2014). A distinctive voice and inspiration for generations of writers, Herrera centers the unprotected while imbuing his work with hope and a sense of possibility.
Herrera earned a B.A. from UCLA in 1972 and is professor emeritus at UC Riverside. His poem “Sunriders” was engraved on a plaque sent on NASA’s unmanned Lucy mission in 2021.
Wendy Red Star
Visual artist and UCLA alum
“I’m interested in creating an art historical cannon of my community’s work, so that people learn about it and know its importance.”
Across her multidisciplinary visual art practice, Wendy Red Star highlights the resilience of her Apsáalooke/Crow heritage, challenging misconceptions and oversimplified portrayals.
In “Four Seasons” (2006), Red Star stages four tableaux representing each of the four seasons. The obviously artificial backdrops satirize the dioramas typical of natural history museums. They include plastic flowers, cardboard and inflatable animals, and Styrofoam packing material. Red Star wears an elk-tooth dress, a traditional garment of the Apsáalooke Nation, and gazes directly at the camera, reminding viewers that Native Americans do not only exist in the past. In her “1880 Crow Peace Delegation” series (2014), Red Star annotated portrait photographs of Apsáalooke leaders with red pen, outlining meaningful elements in the leaders’ attire and adding explanatory text. For a project at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, she arranged cutouts of Native American figures taken from historical photographic portraits of the attendees of the 1898 Indian Congress. That event took place in Omaha and was intended to showcase the daily lives of Native Americans as part of a broader celebration of westward expansion. With wit and subversion, Red Star exposes audiences to materials typically only available to researchers and recovers details of histories that archives either cannot or purposefully do not convey.
Red Star holds an M.F.A. from UCLA and lives in Portland, Oregon.
Keivan G. Stassun
UC Berkeley alum, astronomer and science educator
“To enlist the full diversity of human abilities and perspectives in science is to bring the full power of the human diversity of mind to the task of answering the grand questions. To participate in the asking and the answering of those questions, to contribute uniquely and creatively to the enterprise of science — or at least the opportunity to try — is every person’s right.”
Keivan G. Stassun is a scientist and educator expanding opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) for underrepresented populations. In addition to his research contributions to star evolution and exoplanet discovery, he is founding co-director of the Fisk-Vanderbilt Master’s-to-Ph.D. Bridge Program, which serves as a stepping stone for promising students who may not have the opportunity to gain experiences or skills needed to go directly into a Ph.D. program. Students pursue a master’s degree at Fisk University, a historically Black university, receiving mentorship and research opportunities tailored to their needs and interests. Universities across the country have adopted the program as a model for advancing science by expanding access to it. In 2018, Stassun founded the Frist Center for Autism and Innovation, which takes a multipronged approach to helping neurodiverse individuals find and maintain meaningful employment. Participants get help identifying their strengths and get training in practical skills needed for the workplace. The center also develops technologies that lower barriers to employment and works with leading business scholars to create policies and practices that promote inclusion of neurodiverse employees. 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 holds a bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley and is a faculty member at Vanderbilt University.
Alice Wong
Disability justice activist and UC San Francisco alum
“Activism isn’t supposed to be palatable or convenient. Change cannot occur without friction in resistance to systems and institutions centered on accruing power.”
Alice Wong is a writer, editor and disability justice activist who shares her own experiences navigating the world as a disabled person with a progressive neuromuscular disease. She founded the Disability Visibility Project (DVP) to amplify the voices of disabled people and explore the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender identity, and disability. Wong has edited two essay collections — “Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century” (2020) and “Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire” (2024) — that capture the challenges faced by people of color, immigrants, and queer people who are disabled. Her own writings are accounts of the challenges of living in the community with autonomy, rather than in an institution. Wong also calls attention to policies that adversely affect disabled people, such as the drinking straw bans and the disuse of masks in health care. She co-founded #CripTheVote, a nonpartisan online movement that engaged voters and politicians in discussions about disability issues. Across her work, Wong highlights and supports the work of disabled people, builds relationships and collaborations within the disability community, challenges ableism, and increases the visibility of disabled people.
Wong holds a master’s degree from UC San Francisco. Her work has appeared in Teen Vogue, The New York Times, KQED, and YES! Magazine, among other publications.
