Eight from New England make `genius' rank

A Harvard embryonic stem cell researcher and a New Hampshire illustrator who has spent decades representing the world as seen by turtles are among eight New England winners of the $500,000 MacArthur ``genius" fellowships being announced today.

In the world of prizes, the MacArthur is remarkable because of the size of the awards, and the fact recipients can spend the money however they like. The fellowships are given to Americans in a wide range of fields, and this year the 25 winners include a jazz violinist, a playwright, and a deep-sea explorer.

The awards, sponsored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, are meant to celebrate the creative potential of individuals, but they can also serve as a mark of the times. This year's winners include a scientist fighting deforestation in the tropics, an entrepreneur working to produce affordable drugs for use in the developing world, and Kevin Eggan , the Harvard biologist whose cloning research has been opposed by President Bush and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

``I think the most important thing to me about this is the message that the MacArthur Foundation is sending," said Eggan, 32. ``This points to the mainstream importance of embryonic stem cell research."

Unlike other major awards, which recognize a lifetime of accomplishment, the MacArthur grants often go to youthful recipients -- one of this year's recipients is still in his 20s, and nine are in their 30s.

The winners this year also reflect the evolving nature of America. Of the 25 winners, seven were born abroad. Daniel J. Socolow , director of the MacArthur Fellows program, said that he could not recall so many foreign-born winners in the past.

In addition to Eggan, the Boston-area winners are: Linda Griffith , an MIT biologist; Atul Gawande , a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital who is author of ``Complications," a book on medicine's imperfections, and a staff writer at The New Yorker; Matias Zaldarriaga , a Harvard cosmologist who is trying to piece together the early history of the universe; and Anna Schuleit , an artist who creates memorials at old mental health facilities and who recently moved from New York City to spend a year at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

Also among the New England winners are two illustrators: David Macaulay of Norwich, Vt., author of ``Castle," ``The Way Things Work," and other explanatory books with detailed illustrations of architecture and engineering; and David Carroll of Warner, N.H., a wetlands advocate whose most recent book is ``Self Portrait with Turtles: A memoir." The eighth New England winner is Yale University's Lisa Curran , who studies deforestation in the tropics.

The selection process is so secretive that the winners do not know they are being considered until they get a call telling them they have won. Many winners said that they were both shocked and thrilled to get the call, but one said he was also ``relieved." Carroll has lived most of his life as a freelance writer and illustrator. He and his wife, who is also an artist, have raised three children and constantly struggled financially. For three decades, he said, he and his family have gone without health insurance.

He recounted once talking to a friend who was trying to persuade him to buy an answering machine. If he did buy one, he recalled telling the friend, then he would record a message that said: ``If you are calling from the MacArthur Foundation, please leave a message. All others, please call back."

Now, Carroll said, he could focus on his work.

Griffith, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, summarized her reaction in one word: ``Woohoo!" Griffith studies how cells behave in three dimensional environments, away from the flat surface of a petri dish, and hopes to apply this knowledge to the burgeoning field of tissue engineering. She has been working for several years at MIT to help develop a new major for undergraduates in biological engineering, and said she was now hoping to take a sabbatical to devote more of her time to science.

Much of Eggan's research is already supported by private sources, because of federal restrictions on the funding of embryonic stem cell research. Eggan is directing one of two Harvard teams who hope to create cloned human embryonic stem cells to study diseases. Embryonic stem cell research has been controversial, because it involves the destruction of several day-old human embryos, which critics allege is murder. Creating stem cells using cloning has been even more controversial.

Other winners are: Regina Carter, 40, a New York jazz violinist; Kenneth Catania, 40, a Vanderbilt University neurobiologist; James Fruchterman, 47, a Palo Alto, Calif., technologist; Victoria Hale, 45, a San Francisco pharmaceutical entrepreneur; Adrian LeBlanc, 42, a New York narrative journalist; Josiah McElheny, 39, a New York sculptor; D. Holmes Morton, 55, a Strasburg, Pa., country doctor and researcher; John A. Rich, 46, a physician and Drexel University health policy professor; Jennifer Richeson, 34, a Northwestern University social psychologist; Sarah Ruhl, 32, a New York playwright; George Saunders, 47, a short story writer and Syracuse University professor; Shahzia Sikander, 37, a New York painter; Terence Tao, 31, a University of California at Los Angeles mathematician; Claire Tomlin, 37, a Stanford University aviation engineer; Luis von Ahn, 28, a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist; Edith Widder, 55, a Fort Pierce, Fla., deep-sea explorer; and John Zorn, 53, a New York musician and composer.

Gareth Cook can be reached at cook@globe.com.