The 2017 MacArthur Fellows Were Just Announced. Here ’s How 6 ‘Genius’ Grant Winners Spent Their Life-Changing Prize Money

Jacob Soll has told this story so many times, he almost sounds removed from it. Not bored, or jaded really. But detached — like it happened to a friend of a friend. Or he read about it in a book, and is a little incredulous. “It was like Oliver Twist or something,” he says. “I was the lowest paid professor at my university. My roof was falling in, pipes were exploding. When I got the call, I was literally walking to the library in the rain, thinking about how ruined I was.” It was fall 2011, and the MacArthur Foundation had just named the historian to its fellowship program, an honor that came with a no-strings-attached prize of $500,000 and a mighty boost of career-changing prestige. Like every good rags to riches story, Soll made a speedy U-turn. The prize, colloquially called a “genius grant,” instantly elevated his professional status. He got a big salary bump, fixed his leaky roof, and threw himself into his work with renewed purpose — selling a proposal for his book on financial accountability, “The Reckoning,” soon after. “The MacArthur changed everything,” Soll said after returning from a recent meeting with Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister of Greece, on the country’s debt crisis. “Absolutely everything.” courtesy of Max Nikias—University of [f500link]Southern[/f500link] California. Jacob Soll, after a discussion with Alexis Tsipras, Prime Minister of Greece.Today, the ...
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Careers grants Source Type: news