Princeton Professor Wins 2024 MacArthur 'Genius Grant'

PRINCETON, NJ – Princeton professor Ruha Benjamin was named among the recipients of the prestigious 2024 MacArthur Genius Grant, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced Tuesday.

Benjamin is the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University.

Benjamin is one of 22 MacArthur Fellows in the 2024 cohort who will each receive an $800,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation over a five-year period.

“By integrating critical analysis of innovation with attentiveness to the potential for positive change, Benjamin demonstrates the importance of imagination and grassroots activism in shaping social policies and cultural practices,” the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation said in its announcement.

On platform X, Benjamin said she received the call about the grant the same morning she had a "tense call" with Princeton officials who are investigating her support for students protesting the war in Gaza.

Earlier this year Benjamin acted as the legal and faculty observer for the 13 Princeton students who were arrested and evicted from campus during the pro-Palestinian sit-in.

"What would have been a moment of pure joy and excitement was tempered by the sense that the same institutions that are quick to celebrate our accomplishments have been slow to respond to students' demands to disclose and divest from genocidal violence," Benjamin wrote.

"In fact, the date of the award announcement coincides with a court date for Princeton students who engaged in a campus sit-in last spring. I plan to "celebrate" the award by showing up to court."

Benjamin is currently on sabbatical until Fall 2025.

In addition to her scholarship, Benjamin collaborates with community organizations on digital justice initiatives. She is founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab, where she works with students, organizers, and artists to identify, challenge, and transform tech-mediated harms.

“Benjamin deepens our understanding of the dangers that technological advancements pose to vulnerable populations while reimagining what counts as innovation and who gets to shape our collective future,” the foundation said.

MacArthur Fellows are nominated anonymously by leaders in their respective fields and considered by an anonymous selection committee, according to the foundation’s announcement of 2024 fellows.

Congratulating Benjamin for her achievement, Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber called her an inspiration to her students.

“Ruha Benjamin’s innovative, interdisciplinary scholarship has brought critical new perspectives to our understanding of racial and social inequities in technology, science, and medicine,” Eisgruber said.

“Professor Benjamin is a strikingly original and creative thinker, writer, and educator who inspires her students and readers.”

Benjamin received a BA from Spelman College in 2001 and an MA and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Genetics and Society at the University of California, Los Angeles, a visiting faculty fellow at Harvard University’s Program on Science, Technology, and Society, and an assistant professor of sociology at Boston University.

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