$1.5 Million for Bay Area “Geniuses”

The prized MacArthur Foundation fellowships have been officially announced, and once again, the Bay Area is hitting well above its weight intellectually

Three "genius grant" award-winners from Berkeley to San Francisco will each receive $500,000 to spend as they please.

As per the form, an artist and two scientists were wreathed with financial laurels for their creativity.

Artist Camille Utterback, who works from a studio in San Francisco's soon-to-gentrify Bayview district, was one recipient.

University of California at Berkeley's Maneesh Agrawala won another half million for his work on visualizing data.

Another Berkeley veteran, Lin He, wrangled recognition for her work in molecular biology.

It's the stuff that a million refugees of America's brain-drain dreams of, and couldn't have happened to presumably nicer people.

Photo by Sascha Pohflepp.

Jackson West has given up on being establishment-pleasing enough to ever win an award for anything.