By Sam Semerau
MacArthur Foundation Fellowships
Beginning in 1981, the MacArthur Foundation Fellowships have been awarded with the intent to aid talented individuals in utilizing their creativity and innovation in benefiting society. Fellows are provisioned a stipend of $625,000 over the course of five years.
P. Gabrielle Foreman (ΦBK, Amherst and Visiting Scholar) won a Fellowship for leading research on nineteenth-century collective Black organizing efforts initiatives like the Colored Conventions Project, of which she is director.
Jennifer Carlson (ΦBK, Dartmouth) won a Fellowship reforming the understanding of gun culture in the United States and analyzing the motivations and assumptions that encourage gun ownership.
Nobel Prize
These prestigious honors in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, Peace and Economic Science began in 1901, as willed by Alfred Nobel in his last will and testament. This year, there are five Phi Beta Kappa members on the list of honorees.
K. Barry Sharpless (ΦBK, Dartmouth) won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry by developing click chemistry, an efficient form of molecule reactions that provide high product yields with no unneeded byproducts.
Carolyn Ruth Bertozzi (ΦBK, Radcliffe) won in Chemistry with Sharpless for founding the field of biorthogonal chemistry, which allows scientists to study cells without interfering with natural biological processes, utilizing click chemistry.
Douglas Diamond (ΦBK, Brown) won in Economic Sciences for research in modern banking which included theoretical models explaining the existence of banks and what can be done to make banks less susceptible to rumors of imminent collapse.
Phillip Dybvig (ΦBK, Indiana) won in Economic Sciences for his work with Diamond in creating the Diamond-Dybvig model, which proposed solutions to end banks’ vulnerability towards financial panic and bank runs.
Ben Bernanke (ΦBK, Harvard) received the award in Economic Sciences along with Diamond and Dybvig. Bernanke’s research found that bank failures, like those seen during the Great Depression, are a cause of economic downturn, rather than an effect as previous theories suggested.
Pulitzer Prize
First awarded in 1917, the Pulitzer Prizes are awarded for exceptional achievement in journalism, literature, and musical composition.
Salamishah Tillet (ΦBK, UPenn), a contributing critic at large at The New York Times, won in the category of Criticism for her columns about Black perspectives in art and entertainment in the face of the Black Lives Matter movement.
TIME100
Since 1999, Time magazine has published an annual list of recognizing the world’s 100 most influential leaders, innovators, pioneers, titans, artists and icons.
Adam Phillippy (ΦΒΚ, Loyola University Maryland), the Senior Investigator at the National Human Genome Research Institute, was named one of the top innovators alongside fellow Telomere-to-Telomere Consortium (T2T) scientists. T2T’s work has generated the first complete sequence of a human genome.
Elizabeth Alexander (ΦΒΚ Poet, 2006) was named one of the top titans for her work in poetry, philanthropy, scholarship and as president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which provides grants to institutions in support of higher education, museums, performing arts and conservation.
Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals
These honors are received by federal workers who are most committed and effective in making the nation stronger, better and safer.
Krista Kinnard (ΦΒΚ, Arizona) was the Emerging Leaders Winner for her work as the Department of Labor’s chief of emerging technologies. Kinnard saved the department time and money by utilizing modern technology to streamline repetitive administrative tasks through automation and machine learning.
Barbara C. Morton (ΦΒΚ, Skidmore) won the medal for Management Excellence as a leader in Department of Veteran Affairs’ (VA) Veterans Experience Office. Morton and her team built trust among veterans and their families by introducing procedures to respond to the needs of veterans more directly while also simplifying the process to receive VA benefits.
National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honorees
Since 2006, the National Book Foundation has annually honored five young, debut fiction authors whose work assures a lasting impact in literature.
Clare Sestanovich (ΦΒΚ, Yale) was recognized her collection of short stories, Objects of Desire.
Guggenheim Fellows
Each year, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation honors approximately 175 fellowships to individuals in pursuit of scholarship and creation in the social sciences, natural sciences, humanities, and creative arts.
Peter Filkins (ΦΒΚ, Williams) won a Fellowship in Biography. Filkins has previously written a biography about novelist H.G. Adler and is currently writing a biography on novelist and poet Ingeborg Bachmann.
Kim Bowes (ΦΒΚ, Williams) won a Fellowship in Classics. Bowes is a Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and specializes in Roman archaeology and poverty in late antiquity.
Cynthia Rudin (ΦΒΚ, SUNY at Buffalo) won a Fellowship in Computer Science. Rudin is a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University and is researching machine learning and its applications.
Anthea Kraut (ΦΒΚ, Carleton) won a Fellowship in Dance Studies. Kraut is a professor in the Department of Dance at the University of California, Riverside and is currently working on a project about dancing stand-ins in Hollywood musicals.
Jen Silverman (ΦΒΚ, Brown) won a Fellowship in Drama and Performance Art. Silverman is a playwright, novelist, poet and screenwriter.
Valerie Ann Kivelson (ΦΒΚ, Radcliffe) won a Fellowship in Early Modern Studies. Kivelson is the Thomas N. Tentler Collegiate Professor and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of History at the University of Michigan and specializes in early modern Russian history.
Jeffrey Masten (ΦΒΚ, Denison) won a Fellowship in English Literature. Masten is a Professor of English and Gender and Sexuality Studies at Northwestern University and has written about discourses of sexuality in early English drama.
Paul Werth (ΦΒΚ, Knox) won a Fellowship in European & Latin American History. Werth is a Professor in the Department of History at the University of Nevada and has researched religious freedom in the Russian Empire.
Jennifer Croft (ΦΒΚ, Tulsa) won a Fellowship in Fiction. Croft is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas and is an author and translator.
Margaret Honda (ΦΒΚ, UC San Diego) won a Fellowship in Fine Arts. Honda is a sculptor and filmmaker who specializes in works that question materials’ intended uses.
Rebecca Donner (ΦΒΚ, Berkley) won a Fellowship in General Nonfiction. Donner is a bestselling author and will be a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University in 2023.
Suzanne Lynn Marchand (ΦΒΚ, Berkley) won a Fellowship in Intellectual & Cultural History. Marchand is a Professor of European Intellectual History at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge and is currently writing a book about the history of Herodotus’ readers from 1700 to the present.
Robert F. Barsky (ΦΒΚ, Brandeis) won a Fellowship in Law. Barsky is a Professor of French, European Studies, and Jewish Studies and Law at Vanderbilt University and has researched the intersection of humanities and law, particularly regarding border crossings.
Vera Gribanova (ΦΒΚ, Brandeis) won a Fellowship in Linguistics. Gribanova is an Associate Professor of Linguistics and Director of the Graduate Program at Stanford University.
Daniel Hack (ΦΒΚ, Yale) won a Fellowship in Literary Criticism. Hack is a Professor of English at the University of Michigan and has published two books on Victorian literature.
Paul Saint-Amour (ΦΒΚ, Yale) won a Fellowship in Literary Criticism. Saint-Amour is the Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania and specializes in nineteenth-and-twentieth-century British literature.
Manjul Bhargava (ΦΒΚ, Radcliffe) won a Fellowship in Mathematics. Bhargava is the Robert C. Gunning, ’55 and R. Brandon Fradd, ’83 Professor in Mathematics at Princeton University and specializes in number theory.
Amie Thomasson (ΦΒΚ, Duke) won a Fellowship in Philosophy. Thomasson is the Daniel P. Stone Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy at Dartmouth College and focuses on metaphysics and philosophical methodology.
Joyelle McSweeney (ΦΒΚ, Radcliffe) won a Fellowship in Poetry. McSweeney is a Professor in English for the Creative Writing Program at Notre Dame University and has published poetry, stories, novels, essays, translations and plays.
Brendan Nyhan (ΦΒΚ, Swarthmore) won a Fellowship in Political Science. Nyhan is the James O. Freedman Presidential Professor for the Department of Government at Dartmouth College and focuses on the misperceptions about politics and health care.
David Brakke (ΦΒΚ, Virginia) won a Fellowship in Religion. Brakke is the Joe R. Engle Chair in the History of Christianity and a Professor of History at Ohio State University and specializes in ancient history and religion in history.
Keisha N. Blain (ΦΒΚ, SUNY at Binghamton) won a Fellowship in United States History. Blain is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh and specializes in African American history, the modern African Diaspora and Women’s and Gender Studies.
Sam Semerau is a recent graduate of Albion College with a degree in English and history. She was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa there in April 2022. Albion College is home to the Beta of Michigan chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.