Sigman, Zoli win MacArthur 'genius grants'

Princeton - Princeton - Daniel Sigman , a Princeton University biogeochemist who has conducted pioneering work exploring the large-scale systems that have supported life on the planet throughout the millennia, has been selected as a 2009 MacArthur Fellow. Also chosen was Theodore Zoli , a 1988 alumnus and a visiting lecturer in Princeton's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering since 2003. Zoli is a structural engineer who has developed novel ways of protecting transportation infrastructure in the event of natural and man-made disasters. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced that Sigman, the Dusenbury Professor of Geological and Geophysical Sciences, and Zoli are among 24 trailblazing artists, writers, scientists and others who each will receive a $500,000 no-strings-attached grant over a five-year period. The fellowships, known informally as "genius grants," honor the winners for their creativity, originality and potential to make important contributions to the future. Sigman is searching for the underlying mechanisms that explain how life on Earth has been sustained through a web of chemical, biological and physical forces over time. In doing so, he has developed methods to track the flow of elements vital to life, such as nitrogen and carbon, today and in the past.