The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has announced its 2022 class of MacArthur Fellows.

Twenty-five fellows working in fields ranging from sociology to synthetic inorganic chemistry, music composition to art and architecture, and historical demography to ornithology will each receive $800,000 over five years—an increase from $625,000. Popularly known as the “genius grants,” the awards come without stipulations or reporting requirements and provide fellows with maximum freedom to follow their unique creative vision.

This year’s fellows include Priti Krishtel, a health justice lawyer and co-founder of the Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge (I-MAK), who is exposing the inequities in the patent system to increase access to affordable, life-saving medications on a global scale; Sky Hopinka, an artist and filmmaker affiliated with Bard College who combines imagery and language in films and videos that offer new strategies for representation for the expression of Indigenous worldviews; Reuben Jonathan Miller, a sociologist, criminologist, and social worker at the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, University of Chicago; Ikue Mori, an electronic music composer and performer who aims to transform the use of percussion in improvisation and expand boundaries of machine-based music; Steven Prohira, a physicist at the University of Kansas who is working to advance the study of cosmic rays and ultra-high energy neutrinos through a rare combination of expertise in theory, engineering, and experimental design.

“The 2022 MacArthur Fellows are architects of new modes of activism, artistic practice, and citizen science. They are excavators uncovering what has been overlooked, undervalued, or poorly understood. They are archivists reminding us of what should survive,” said MacArthur Fellows director Marlies Carruth. “Their work extends from the molecular level to the land beneath our feet to Earth’s orbital environment—offering new ways for us to understand the communities, systems, and social forces that shape our lives around the globe.”

(Photo credit: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)