MacArthur Grants

GENIUS TIMES TWO
Block and Smith win MacArthur Grants

By Diane Manuel

arbara Block, assistant professor of biological sciences, and Anna Deavere Smith, the Ann O’Day Maples Professor in the Arts, have been named among this year’s recipients of “genius grants” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Block, 38, is co-director of the Tuna Research and Conservation Center, a collaboration between Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. She has used “gene fingerprinting” to address ecologists’ questions about populations of tuna, marlin and swordfish in the wild, and is developing telemetry devices to follow these ocean nomads at sea. Block has won a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award and the President’s Medal of the Society for Experimental Biology in London. She will receive $245,000 over five years.

Smith, 45, is a performer and playwright whose work blends theatrical art, social commentary, journalism and intimate reflection. Her one-woman shows, Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, explore racial and class conflict in America. Smith has written and performed for theater, film, and television. She has won two Obies, two Drama Critics Circle awards and two Tony Award nominations. She will receive $280,000 over five years. ST

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