Campus News

Alumna receives MacArthur Foundation’s ‘genius award’

A.E. Stallings-v.env
A.E. Stallings

A.E. (Alicia) Stallings, who graduated from UGA in 1990, has been selected as a 2011 MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Stallings is one of 22 receiving the fellowship this year.

The award, nicknamed the “genius award,” is given annually to talented individuals throughout the world who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction. The fellowship comes with an unrestricted stipend of $500,000 to the recipient.

Stallings was recognized for her work as a poet and translator. Originally from Decatur, but now residing in Athens, Greece, Stallings ­majored in Latin while a student in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. She was in the Honors Program and came to UGA on a Foundation Fellowship, the university’s premier undergraduate scholarship that offers exceptional opportunities for international travel. Stallings later received her master’s at Oxford University in England.

Currently, she is the poetry program director of the Athens Centre.

Stallings is the second UGA alumna to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. Beth Shapiro received the recognition in 2009. In 2003, Eve Troutt Powell, an associate professor of history, became the first UGA faculty member to receive the fellowship.