Two individuals from the Washington metro area are recipients of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, a $500,000 award given to nominated figures from a wide range of professions who demonstrate creativity and the desire to improve society.
Lisa Cooper, professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Medicine, and Ruth DeFries, an environmental geographer at the University of Maryland, College Park, are two of 24 winners from a pool of several thousand nominees.
This year’s winners are “wonderfully interesting in the work they do … pushing at boundaries and … giving us a glimpse of the future,” said Daniel J. Socolow, director of MacArthur Fellows program.
Dr. Cooper, a practicing physician and professor with both the School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, focuses her research on doctors’ interactions with minority patients, particularly African Americans, an area where she has uncovered biases that could affect the quality of health care. She is developing several programs that allow doctors to see their own behavioral interactions and evaluate them, and also initiatives that help patients ask their doctors informed questions.
She is not exactly sure what she will do with the money, but is planning a project that will “benefit people from disadvantaged groups,” she told The Examiner, and may expand her research areas to include other minorities and other regions of the world.
DeFries’ work combines remote satellite imagery and a study of the environmental effects of agriculture and urbanization to highlight and explore different processes affecting the earth. She is currently out of the country, and could not be reached for comment.
