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Among the 24 new winners of MacArthur Foundation grants are five men working at Califor nia academic institutions. From the MacArthur folks:
Phil Baran, 36, is an organic chemist at Scripps Research Institute recreating pharmacologically interesting compounds isolated from natural sources de novo in the laboratory through an experimental methodology known as “total synthesis.”
C. Kevin Boyce, 39, is a Stanford paleobotanist whose studies of both extinct and living plants across multiple timescales are establishing direct links between ancient remains and present-day ecosystems and advancing our understanding of potential ecological changes as the planet warms.
David Lobell, 34, is an agricultural ecologist at Stanford who unearths and connects richly informative sources of data to investigate the impact of climate change on crop production and food security around the globe.
Colin Camerer, 53, is a pioneering CalTech economist whose research challenges assumptions about human behavior in the traditional models used by economists. Particularly adept at designing original and effective empirical experiments to explore and refine economists’ predictive models, Camerer’s seminal studies provide strong evidence of the inconsistencies between classical economic principles of rationality and observed choices and behavior of real people, leading to new theories.
Carl Haber, 54, is an experimental physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who is developing new technologies for preservation of inaccessible and deteriorating sound recordings.
The full 2013 class of MacArthur Fellows.
Photo of Baran: Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
