The MacArthur Foundation rewards each year about 22 Fellows with a 5-year $500,000 grant given in instalments. The only eligibility requirement is that the laureates must be either citizens or permanent residents of the US. Let’s see the break-up of recent classes.
– This year there has been 23 recipients. Most are US citizens educated there, the 5 exceptions being Israeli mathematician Chudnovsky (the only mathematician), German photographer Barth, Mexican-American film-maker Almada, and two frenchmen: bow-maker Rolland and optical physicist Guyon.
– Last year, the 22 laureates had 4 non-US educated ones: German physicist Greiner, Cuban percussionist Prieto, Italian silversmith Vitali, and Japanese developmental biologist Yamashita.
– In 2010 there has been 23 fellows, among which: Chinese fiction writer Li, Israeli optical physicist Lipson, French economist Saez, and Chinese computer security specialist Song.
So, the general recent trends seem to be:
– about a half of the fellows are scientists broadly speaking, the other half being connected to the arts
– about 18% are non-US educated, and 82% are US citizens educated there
– mathematicians are rare: before Chudnovsky there has been Mahadevan in 2009, Tao in 2006, and then it goes back to Yau in 2000. They were more numerous in the eighties it seems.