MacArthur ‘genius’ class includes engineer who views wastewater as

Author Ben Lerner, environmental health advocate Gary Cohen, artist Nicole Eisenman and Princeton professor Marina Rustow are in the 2015 group of winners of the grants made by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He is an inorganic chemist working in the field of semiconductor nanowires and nanowire photonics.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Lin-Manuel Miranda and 22 others will receive an large cash prize paid over five years.

A list of all the winners and their full biographies can be read on the MacArthur Foundation’s website.

Desmond’s forthcoming book, “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City” (Crown, due out in March), draws on his research to tell the stories of eight families living in poverty in Milwaukee and the two landlords who own the properties where they live.

Many said they would use the money to support their work in the future.

Patrick Awuah, 50, Accra, Ghana: “Education entrepreneur creating a new model for higher education in Africa that combines training in ethical leadership, a liberal arts tradition, and skills for contemporary African needs and opportunities”. The Columbia University associate professor and environmental engineer uses microbes to turn wastewater into fertilizer, energy and clean water.

Mr Coates was cited for his unique blend of “personal reflection and historical scholarship” in his writings about race relations in the US.

Desmond, 35, an associate professor of sociology and social studies, established the Milwaukee Area Renters Study, which collected information from more than 1,000 local households through in-person interviews administered by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center.

Lien’s theatre designs include New York productions of NATASHA, PIERRE, AND THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 and AN OCTOROON.

Heidi Williams, 34, Cambridge, Mass.: “Economist unraveling the forces that hinder or spur medical innovation through empirically based studies that are informing public policy”.