Professor Roland Fryer Named as 2011 MacArthur Foundation Fellow

Harvard Economics Professor Roland Fryer was recently named as one of 22 MacArthur Foundation Fellows for 2011. He is one of three Harvard faculty members who received the prestigious MacArthur “Genius Grants” this year.

The MacArthur Fellowships are no-strings-attached grants of $500,000 which recipients use to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional endeavors. Recipients are nominated for the awards anonymously and are not informed they are under consideration until they are notified by the MacArthur Foundation that they have won.

Professor Fryer’s academic work focuses on illuminating the causes and consequences of economic disparity due to race and inequality in American society, particularly in education.

In an interview with the Harvard Gazette, on being named a MacArthur Fellow, Professor Fryer said, “I’m still in a bit of shock. [T]he feeling that is most prominent at this point is one of gratitude — to the foundation for the fellowship, to my colleagues, and to the University for doing what it can to provide an environment for faculty where ideas are our only constraints.”

Roland Fryer, Jr. is the Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a former junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows — one of academia’s most prestigious research posts.

He is also the Faculty Director of The Education Innovation Laboratory at Harvard University (Harvard EdLabs), which works to provide path-breaking research and development in the field of education. The EdLabs website offers a complete overview of Professor Fryer's research work. (EdLabs brochure.pdf)

Harvard MacArthur Fellows announced on WBUR 90.9FM Boston

Roland Fryer, A ‘Genius,’ Illuminates Consequences Of Disparity - on WBUR 90.9FM Boston

MacArthur Foundation Announces 22 New Fellows for 2011

Professor Roland Fryer’s MacArthur Foundation Fellow profile

The New York Times - MacArthur Foundation Selects 22 ‘Geniuses’