UMass Professor of Economics Nancy Folbre was one of the 29 winners of this year’s prestigious John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation “genius grants.” Folbre will use the $280,000, five-year fellowship to continue her research on family and the work roles of family members. More specifically, she explores the work of teachers, parents, nurses and others who provide what she calls “caring labor” that is undervalued and underpaid in this society. She also plans to support the Center for Popular Economics, a local collective that teaches economic literacy to political activists and organizers. “She’s a public intellectual in the grass roots sense of the term,” said Gerald Epstein, chairman of the Department of Economics, about her quest to make economics understandable to the general public. “On top of this, Professor Folbre is a gifted teacher and tireless, generous and effective public citizen in the Economics Department.” Folbre is the author of several books, which include: A Field Guide to the U.S. Economy (1995); War on the Poor: A Defense Manual (1996); and Who Pays for the Kids (1994). After receiving her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Texas, she earned a Ph.D. from the UMass Economics Department in 1979. In summarizing the MacArthur Foundation’s motivation for “genius grants,” its president, Adele Simmons, said that “The creative person is at the heart of society’s capacity to improve the human condition.” UMass Provost Cora Marrett said, “The MacArthur awards recognize the most talented individuals nationally” and in so doing have established a tradition of genius here on campus. Past MacArthur-award winners with campus ties include: English professor and fiction writer John Edgar Wideman; former Music faculty member Max Roach; former Comparative Literature professor Marc Shell; and three alumni from our master’s program in regional planning (Maria Verela, Wesley Jacobs, Unita Blackwell). Folbre responded to the award with her characteristic humility, forbidding anyone in her family to refer to her as a genius. “I’m a totally UMass person,” she said.