The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced its latest cohort of 20 fellows, each granted $800,000 over five years. Among the awardees are Texas State University forensic anthropologist Kate Spradley and Duke University philosopher-neuroscientist Felipe De Brigard. Their projects sit at the crossroads of scientific rigor and social responsibility, illustrating why the foundation dubs the honor the “Genius” grant.
Unearthing dignity in Brooks County
In 2013, Spradley was called to a modest cemetery in Brooks County, southern Texas to retrieve the remains of a man whose burial plot was undocumented. The local funeral home admitted, “We don’t know where he’s buried.” The problem extended far beyond a single body; more than a hundred Central American migrants who had perished during treacherous northward journeys were likewise lost in the records.
Spradley recalls the moment the scope of the issue became clear: “We are going to have to exhume this entire cemetery.” She labeled the situation an administrative loss where bodies vanish from official ledgers and families are left without answers. The practice violates basic human rights, as she emphasizes, “Everyone should have dignity in death—and the neglect of that dignity causes unbearable torture for grieving relatives.”
One of the unidentified bodies belonged to Elmer Esau Barahona a young man from El Salvador who fled gang pressure in 2012. After a coyote abandoned him “next to a tree” with a brown plaid shirt tied around his knee, officials interred him without any record. The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team offered to fund DNA testing, and Spradley’s team—operating under the banner Operation Identification (OpID)—took on the daunting task of locating the unknown grave.
Because the funeral home lacked precise burial maps, Spradley’s group employed ground-penetrating radar, forensic osteology, and fingerprint rehydration techniques taught by the FBI. Their persistence paid off when a brown plaid shirt, hanging on a lab clothesline, sparked the realization, “Oh my gosh, this could be Elmer.” DNA confirmation followed, turning a nameless statistic into a named individual.
The success spurred broader reforms. Spradley helped launch the Forensic Border Coalition which advocated for policy changes that led the FBI to broaden its DNA database to include samples from Latin American families. Today, OpID’s efforts span multiple southern Texas cemeteries, converting “hundred-plus” anonymous remains into identified persons, offering closure to families long denied it.
Rewriting memory in post-conflict Colombia
While Spradley digs into the earth, De Brigard examines the mind. As a philosopher and cognitive neuroscientist at Duke University, he challenges the traditional archival model of memory, which treats recollection as a perfect playback of stored events. Instead, he argues that memory is a reconstructive process, piecing together fragments from the original experience, later encounters, expectations, and cultural narratives.
De Brigard’s research team launched the Memoria y Perdón project—Spanish for “Memory and Forgiveness”—to study survivors of Colombia’s decades-long paramilitary and guerrilla violence. Roughly 100,000 individuals in the northern region endured murders, kidnappings, and disappearances. After a peace accord, former perpetrators returned to the same communities, making reconciliation a matter of survival.
The interdisciplinary study combines interviews, physiological monitoring, and brain-imaging data collected over five years. Findings reveal that present-day forgiveness can dampen the intensity of traumatic memories, suggesting that memory is not static but modifiable when the brain engages in adaptive reinterpretation.
De Brigard’s work complements Spradley’s mission: when families lack concrete facts about a loved one’s fate, they rely on memory, which can be fragile. By showing how forgiveness reshapes recollection, De Brigard offers a pathway for emotional healing that parallels the physical identification of the dead.
Why the award matters
The MacArthur Fellowship recognises bold, interdisciplinary approaches that address societal challenges. Spradley’s excavation of anonymous migrant graves restores identity to those erased by bureaucracy, while De Brigard’s reconceptualisation of memory provides tools for post-conflict societies to mend psychological wounds. Both projects embody the foundation’s credo: “where we try to turn numbers into names” and expand the reach of scientific insight into the realm of human dignity.
Beyond the $800,000 grant, the fellows gain unfettered freedom to pursue their research for five years, a testament to the belief that ingenuity thrives without constraints. As the MacArthur Foundation highlighted, the award celebrates those who turn overlooked data—whether skeletal remains or fragmented recollections—into stories that restore humanity.
