Vilcek Foundation Names 2011 Vilcek Prize Recipients

The Vilcek Foundation is pleased to announce the 2011 winners of its annual prizes, given in biomedical science and the arts and humanities.

 
Titia de Lange, PhD, has been chosen to receive the Vilcek Prize for Biomedical Science in recognition of her groundbreaking research on mechanisms that help maintain genome stability and protect cells from becoming cancerous. Born in the Netherlands, Dr. de Lange is the Leon Hess Professor of Biology at the Rockefeller University in New York City. Her many previous awards and honors include the 2010 Clowes Memorial Award, the 2001 Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research and membership in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

 
Yugoslavian-born Charles Simic is awarded the Vilcek Prize for the Arts, this year given in the field of literature. Appointed the fifteenth United States Poet Laureate in 2007, Mr. Simic’s poetry is widely recognized as among the most strikingly original of our time. Earlier this year, he was presented with the Robert Frost Medal, by the Poetry Society of America; his previous awards include a MacArthur Foundation fellowship and the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

The Vilcek Prizes are accompanied by a $100,000 cash award and a trophy created by designer Stefan Sagmeister. The Vilcek Prizes are the highlight of the Foundation’s year-round programs to honor and publicize the accomplishments of foreign-born scientists and artists.

 The 2011 Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise recognize the achievements of Yibin Kang in biomedical science and Dinaw Mengestu in literature. Born in China, Dr. Kang’s research has contributed to the understanding of the molecular basis of cancer metastasis. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University.

Ethiopian-born Dinaw Mengestu is an awardwinning novelist, whose writing explores the themes of alienation and human connection among immigrants in America. Also a journalist, he has reported on conflicts in Africa for Rolling Stone, Granta, and other publications.

The Creative Promise prizes were inaugurated in 2009 to acknowledge the accomplishments of a younger generation of immigrants in the early stages of their professional careers. These winners each receive a $25,000 cash award and a commemorative plaque.

In the literary category, they are Ilya Kaminsky, Téa Obreht , Vu Tran, and Simon Van BooyKatherine Fitzgerald, Ekaterina Heldwein, Galit Lahav, and Elina Zuniga. Each finalist will receive a $5,000 prize.

The prizewinners and finalists will be honored at the Vilcek Foundation’s annual awards presentation dinner in New York City this April.

KJ