Another year of Black greatness!
The 2023 MacArthur Fellows have been announced. And among the 20 recipients of this year’s grant are seven Black trailblazers spanning various sectors including literature, anthropology, environmental studies, law, and art.
The MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the “genius” grant, is a $800,000 no strings attached award given to “extraordinarily talented and creative individuals as an investment in their potential.” The fellowship is one of the most prestigious honors that can be bestowed in the United States. Fellows are nominated and endorsed by their peers and selected by a group of anonymous invited evaluators and selectors. The fellows are chosen based on “exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishments and potential for the Fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work.”
Since its inception in 1981, there have been 1,131 MacArthur fellows. This year’s Black grantees include legal scholars E. Tendayi Achiume and Andrea Armstrong, famed composer and pianist Courtney Bryan, multidisciplinary artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons, computer scientist Lester Mackey, interdisciplinary scholar Imani Perry, and Philadelphia-based artist Carolyn Lazard.
While their work varies, each fellow has been working diligently to contribute to the understanding of Black life, community, and history. They have also simultaneously built engaged audiences around reimagining what a world free of socially toxic “-isms” could look like.
“The 2023 MacArthur Fellows are applying individual creativity with global perspective, centering connections across generations and communities. They forge stunning forms of artistic expression from ancestral and regional traditions, heighten our attention to the natural world, improve how we process massive flows of information for the common good, and deepen understanding of systems shaping our environment,” said Marlies Carruth, Director, MacArthur Fellows.
Learn more about the 2023 MacArthur Fellows below.
E. Tendayi Achiume, 41, Legal Scholar
Photo by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
“E. Tendayi Achiume is reframing foundational concepts of international law at the intersection of racial justice and global migration. In her scholarship, Achiume envisions more ethical ways of governing the movement of people across borders in an effort to address the past and ongoing harms of colonial systems of power.”
Andrea Armstrong, 48, Incarceration Law Scholar
Photo by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
“Andrea Armstrong is an incarceration law scholar bringing much-needed transparency to incarceration practices in the United States. She shines light on the poor living conditions in prisons and jails, and in particular the deaths of individuals in custody. Her research, legal writings, and advocacy are rooted in incarcerated people’s experiences in Louisiana, but the influence of her work is much broader.”
Courtney Bryan, 41, Composer and Pianist
Photo by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
“Courtney Bryan is a composer and pianist threading together elements of jazz, classical, and sacred music in pieces that foreground the lived experiences of African Americans. In works for solo piano, chorus, chamber music ensembles, and orchestra, Bryan bridges gaps between often disparate musical worlds. She layers styles from African American traditions, such as gospel, soul, and spirituals, onto postmodern classical concert works, and there is a subtle improvisational impulse to her compositions. Many of Bryan’s compositions reverberate with pressing social and political issues of our time.”
María Magdalena Campos-Pons, 64, Multidisciplinary Artist
Photo by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
“María Magdalena Campos-Pons is a multidisciplinary artist exploring how memory, spirituality, and identity are entangled with personal and collective histories across the Caribbean. Campos-Pons’s artistic practice spans photography, performance, sculpture, drawing, painting, and video, and her works often take the form of richly layered, multi-media installations. She forges connections between her own experiences as a Cuban woman and global issues of displacement and inequality.”
Lester Mackey, 38, Computer Scientist and Statistician
Photo by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
“Lester Mackey is a computer scientist and statistician advancing solutions to data science problems with practical applications. Mackey’s research in machine learning and statistics focuses on techniques to improve efficiency and predictive performance in computational statistical analysis of very large data sets. He applies his theoretical insights to develop scalable learning algorithms with direct benefit for society.”
Imani Perry, 51, Interdisciplinary Scholar and Writer
Photo by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
“Imani Perry is an interdisciplinary scholar and writer giving fresh context to African American social conditions and experiences along dimensions of race, gender, and politics. Her nuanced and provocative reflections on historical and contemporary life span a wide range of genres and disciplines. Drawing from law, literature, history, philosophy, and popular culture, Perry explores how Black Americans—and often Black women in particular—have resisted, survived, and nonetheless thrived by forging singular paths in the face of oppression and injustice. Her insightful connections between individual experiences, complex social obstacles, and emergent cultural expressions infuse her scholarship with an authenticity and sense of discovery that appeals to broad audiences.”
Carolyn Lazard, 36, Artist
Carolyn Lazard was not pictured on the MacArthur Grant site.
“Carolyn Lazard is an artist exploring the limits of aesthetic perception and using accessibility as a creative tool for collective practices of care. With a practice that spans the mediums of video, installation, sculpture, and performance, their work challenges ableist expectations of solo productivity and efficiency. They approach these subjects using the minimalist language of conceptual art and avant-garde cinema.”
Congratulations to the 2023 MacArthur Grant Fellows!
Photo by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation