MacArthur Fellows Announced

The MacArthur Fellowships - referred to by some as the "Genius Grant" - have been awarded for 2008 and physicists of various stripes have earned four of the 25 fellowships.

• Marin Soljacic, optical physicist - received the fellowship for his work indeveloping wireless power transmission methods, sometimes called witricity
• Adam Reiss, astronomer - received the fellowship for his key role in the discovery of dark energy
• Alexei Kitaev, physicist/computer scientist - received the fellowship for his work with quantum systems that show real promise in creating practical quantum computers
• Andrea Ghez, astrophysicist - received the award for her work in developing and adapting new telescope techniques, called speckle imaging, to distinguish binary and other multiple star systems which had previously been believed to be individual stars

The McArthur Fellowships are $500,000 "no string attached" grants to those who show exceptional creativity in their fields and the prospect of future excellence. The money is paid out quarterly over a span of 5 years, to provide "seed money" for new intellectual and creative ventures.