Ten New Yorkers are among this year's slate of "genius grant" winners from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
The prize comes with a $625,000 -- no strings attached. The foundation awards the genius grants every year to individuals it determines are exceptional in their respective fields.
Among the New Yorkers on the list are Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the hit Broadway show "Hamilton". The winners stretch beyond the theater and arts world though. Among the other recipients are Kartik Chandran, an environmental engineer who works with wastewater, and Alex Truesdell, a designer who creates furniture and other tools for disabled children.
"It's a very elite club. I mean this year it's 24 out of countless people this award could have gone to," said Joe Dziemianowicz, theater critic for the New York Daily News. "It really honors standout originality, standout ambition and dedication to work."
Joe Dziemianowicz spoke to WNYC's Soterios Johnson.
The full list of winners from New York:
Kartik Chandran, 41, Columbia University environmental engineer integrating microbial ecology, molecular biology and engineering to transform wastewater into useful resources such as fertilizers, energy sources and clean water.
Michelle Dorrance, 36, a dancer and choreographer reinvigorating tap dancing by combining its musicality with the intricacies of contemporary dance.
Nicole Eisenman, 50, an artist whose paintings, sculptures and drawings explore such themes as gender and sexuality, family dynamics and the inequities of power and wealth.
Ben Lerner, 36, an English professor at Brooklyn College of the City College of New York, Lerner also is a novelist, poet and critic who has explored the relevance of the artist to modern culture.
Mimi Lien, 39, a set designer for theater, opera and dance who has created performance space to establish relationships between the characters on stage as well as between the actors and the audience.
Lin-Manuel Miranda, 35, a playwright, composer and performer whose work fuses traditional storytelling with contemporary musical styles and whose most recent play, "Hamilton", is a Broadway sensation.
Marina Rustow, 46, Princeton, New Jersey. Princeton University historian whose work has shed new light on lives of Jews and the broader society of the medieval Middle East.
Alex Truesdell, 59, an adaptive designer and fabricator, Truesdell has created low-tech and affordable tools and furniture out of such materials as cardboard and glue for children with disabilities.
Basil Twist, 46, a puppeteer and theater artist recognized for his innovative work that has helped revitalize puppetry as a serious and sophisticated art form.
William Dichtel, 37, Ithaca, New York. A Cornell University chemist working to bring a new class of nanostructured materials out of laboratories and into daily use.