Dr. Dimitri Nakassis, 40, a professor at the University of Toronto, is one of 24 people to receive a “genius grant”this year.
More accurately known as a fellowship of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the honour comes with a no-strings-attached stipend of $625,000 (U.S.) paid over five years. The foundation avoids the term genius, saying that their awards go to people with many impressive qualities beyond intellectual prowess.
Each year fellowships are awarded to between 20 and 40 individuals who “show extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.” It claims to be one of the largest private philanthropies based in the United States.
According to its website, the Foundation has paid out $5.5-billion U.S. since 1978 through nearly 22,000 grants and program-related investments to more than 7,900 organizations and individuals.
Nakassis, a classicist and archaeologist, is now a MacArthur Fellow.
What does a classicist do?
In an interview on the MacArthur Foundation website, Nakassis says he was inspired to study ancient Greece after spending summers with his extended family in Greece as a child.
Nakassis’research is challenging the long-held theories about the structure of the Late Bronze Age Mycenaean society. His studies of clay tablets written in Linear B, the early Greek script, show that the political structure of that society may not have been the rigid oligarchy it was once thought to be.
Nakassis is also co-director of a study that is using three-dimensional digital imaging technology to create high-quality print and digital editions of these administrative and accounting records from 1400–1200 B.C..
Why did he win?
Nakassis isn’t just your run-of-the-mill smart guy with a PhD. The MacArthur Foundation credits his “rare intellectual breadth, comprising philology, archaeology, and contemporary social and economic theory”for his multifaceted approach to the study of Bronze Age Greece. The organization says he is redefining the methodologies and frameworks of the field.
He has a BA in Classical Archaeology from the University of Michigan, a MA in Greek, and Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology from the University of Texas at Austin.
How does it work?
Nominators are invited and serve confidentially for terms of several months. They are leaders in their respective fields, identified for their expertise and familiarity with exceptionally creative people, says the foundation.
The fellowship recipients can’t apply for the award, so the tales of how they reacted to the phone call from the director of the program in early September vary, but their surprise is a common link.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Nakassis said he found out while lying in a hospital bed, woozy from medication for a procedure he was undergoing.
Puppeteer Basil Twist reported “I was like, ‘Who is this, a bill collector?’ ” as he was rehearsing a new show.
Lin-Manuel Miranda, composer and star of the Broadway hit Hamilton and 2015 Fellow (a fellow fellow?), said that he ignored the call twice thinking it was the cable company, and only found out about the surprise award when he answered the third time, ready to blast the cable company for its poor service.
Why are no strings attached to the prize money?
The MacArthur Fellowship says “We believe that highly motivated, self-directed, and talented people are in the best position to decide how to allocate their time and resources.”
Because recipients aren’t obligated to report back or account for their spending, they are free to use the money as they see fit to continue working on their current projects or start something new. There are no restrictions on how the money is spent.
Who else has won?
“We consider creative people applying their talents across the widest possible range of activities, rather than a predetermined set of fields,”says the foundation.
In recent years people in the following professions have been recipients of the honour: Mathematician, puppeteer, lawyers, musician, writer, astrophysicist, chemist, poet, biophysicist, engineer, journalist, geriatrician, neuroroboticist, deep-sea explorer , housing advocate and medieval historian.
The full list of 2015 winners:
- Patrick Awuah, education entrepreneur
- Kartik Chandran, environmental engineer
- Ta-Nehisi Coates, journalist
- Gary Cohen, environmental health advocate
- Matthew Desmond, urban sociologist, Harvard University
- William Dichtel, chemist, Cornell University
- Michelle Dorrance, tapdancer and choreographer
- Nicole Eisenman, painter
- LaToya Ruby Frazier, photographer and video artist
- Ben Lerner, writer
- Mimi Lien, set designer
- Lin-Manuel Miranda, playwright, composer and performer
- Dimitri Nakassis, classicist, University of Toronto
- John Novembre, computational biologist
- Christopher Ré, computer scientist, Stanford
- Marina Rustow, historian, Princeton
- Juan Salgado, Community leader
- Beth Stevens, neuroscientist, Harvard Medical School
- Lorenz Studer, stem-cell biologist, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
- Alex Truesdell, adaptive designer and fabricator
- Basil Twist, puppetry artist and director
- Ellen Bryant Voigt, poet
- Heidi Williams, economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Peidong Yang, inorganic chemist, Berkeley