<p>A Princeton professor, two Princeton graduates and another graduate student who attended Princeton have all won the prestigious MacArthur Genius Grants for 2005. Given Princeton's small size and the absence of large graduate programs, this is quite impressive. </p>
<p>"Princeton engineer Claire Gmachl has been selected as a 2005 MacArthur Fellow for her research on highly versatile lasers that could be used in fields ranging from environmental monitoring to medical diagnostics and homeland security.</p>
<p>The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced Sept. 20 that Gmachl is among 25 scholars, scientists and artists who each will receive $500,000 in unrestricted support over the next five years. The awards, known informally as "genius grants," are given to people from a broad range of fields who "demonstrate exceptional creativity and promise."</p>
<p>Gmachl is the third Princeton scientist or engineer, all women, to have won a MacArthur Fellowship in the last four years. Bonnie Bassler, a professor of molecular biology, won in 2002, and Naomi Leonard, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, won in 2004. </p>
<p>This year's winners also included photographer Fazal Sheikh, a 1987 graduate of Princeton in art and archaeology, and Emily Thompson, a 1992 graduate alumna who is an aural historian and associate professor of history at the University of California-San Diego. The foundation cited Sheikh for "using the personalizing power of portraiture to bring the faces of the world's displaced people into focus," and Thompson, who earned her Ph.D. from Princeton in the history of science, for recovering "an important history of our time" by "charting the transformation of the elusive and ephemeral phenomenon of sound."</p>