Two University of Kentucky professors awarded prestigious MacArthur ‘genius’ grants

Two professors with links to the University of Kentucky have been awarded MacArthur fellowships, a prestigious award that includes an $800,000 stipend for their work.

Loka Ashwood, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Kentucky, and Ebony G. Patterson, a multimedia artist who previously taught at UK, are among this year’s fellowship recipients.

The grants, often called the “genius grant,” are given out each year by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to individuals in various fields, and includes a “no-strings-attached” stipend distributed over five years. Twenty-two people were selected for the fellowship this year.

Ashwood’s research focuses on rural identity and culture, and on the economic and social challenges rural communities face. At 39, she is one of the youngest recipients of this year’s round of grants.

Ashwood was biking to her office on UK’s campus on Monday morning when she got several calls from a Chicago phone number, she said. Not recognizing the number, she went to meetings before she got another call from the number that she answered and learned she’d been awarded the fellowship.

Fellows are anonymously nominated and are not aware they’ve been selected until the end of the process.

“I was just utterly shocked,” Ashwood said. “I’ve never been so shocked about something good in my life before.”

Loka Ashwood, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Kentucky, has been awarded the prestigious MacAurthur fellowship. She is one of two fellows with links to UK who was awarded the fellowship in 2024.
Loka Ashwood, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Kentucky, has been awarded the prestigious MacAurthur fellowship. She is one of two fellows with links to UK who was awarded the fellowship in 2024.

For her, the fellowship points to the importance of her community and fellow researchers and the rural communities she’s worked with.

“I’ve come to realize more over the last few days it’s really about my community,” Ashwood said. “I’ll never know who nominated me and all the folks who wrote letters, but it’s the community of scholars that have supported my work and the rural communities that have welcomed me with open arms.”

Ashwood said she’s not yet finalized plans for how she will use the stipend, but her initial idea is to figure out a way to help communities, students and academics access funding for research or other needs.

“My hope is that I can use this to try to make more change where we need it so desperately,” Ashwood said.

“I feel like this is a tool that I can help do that, but I also really hope it brings more attention to many of my colleagues and the communities that have already been doing this work for years.”

Ebony G. Patterson photographed in her studio in UK’s Art & Visual Studies Building.
Ebony G. Patterson photographed in her studio in UK’s Art & Visual Studies Building.

Patterson is an artist from Jamaica whose work has shown internationally. She’s also had exhibits locally in Louisville and Lexington. She was a professor of painting and mixed media at UK for about a decade, beginning in 2007, according to her website.

Her art “explores themes of visibility, beauty, race, class, violence, mourning, and regeneration,” according to the MacArthur Fellowship website. She could not immediately be reached for comment for this story.