Alice Wong received an MS (2004) in Sociology from the University of California, San Francisco. She is currently founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project and a columnist for Teen Vogue. Wong served on the National Council on Disability (2013–2015), and her essays have appeared in The New York Times, KQED, and YES! Magazine, among other publications.
The MacArthur Fellowship is a five-year grant to individuals who show exceptional creativity in their work and the prospect for still more in the future. The fellowship is designed to provide recipients with the flexibility to pursue their own artistic, intellectual, and professional activities in the absence of specific obligations or reporting requirements. There are no limits on age or area of activity. Individuals cannot apply for this award; they must be nominated by individuals identified in a process of broad and diverse outreach.
At the heart of the MacArthur Fellows Program is its aim to identify extraordinarily creative individuals with a track record of excellence in a field of scholarship or area of practice, who demonstrate the ability to impact society in significant and beneficial ways through their pioneering work or the rigor of their contributions.
In keeping with this purpose, the Foundation awards fellowships directly to individuals rather than through institutions. Recipients may be writers, scientists, artists, social scientists, humanists, teachers, entrepreneurs, or individuals in other fields, with or without institutional affiliations.