Loka Ashwood can do whatever she wants with the $800,000 she’ll receive as one of this year’s newly named class of MacArthur Fellows.
A sociologist who specializes in environmental justice issues, Ashwood ticks off the possibilities. The impoverished rural residents she’s studied need help. Graduate students could use financial assistance. Ashwood could use more writing time.
“There’s just so many options,” Ashwood said in a recent telephone interview.
The 39-year-old assistant professor of sociology at the University of Kentucky was one of 22 high achievers selected for what is popularly known as the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s “genius” grant. Ashwood is both a scholar and an advocate; she takes the side of the people she writes about.
