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Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise
The Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise were established in 2009 as a complement to the Vilcek Prizes, to encourage and support emerging to mid-career immigrant artists and scientists who have demonstrated exceptional achievements early in their careers. As with the Vilcek Prizes, the Creative Promise Prizes are awarded annually in biomedical science and in a rotating category of the arts — in 2021, in filmmaking.
2021 Creative Promise Prizewinners in Biomedical Science
2021Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science
Mohamed Abou Donia receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for demonstrating the potential of the human microbiome as a source of novel drugs and uncovering the basis of microbiome-driven drug metabolism.
2021Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science
Ibrahim Cissé receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for using super-resolution biological imaging to directly visualize the dynamic nature of gene expression in living cells.
2021Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science
Silvi Rouskin receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for developing methods to unravel the shapes of RNA molecules inside cells and aiding the potential development of RNA-based therapeutics.
2021 Creative Promise Prizewinners in Filmmaking
2021Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Filmmaking
Juan Pablo González receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Filmmaking for the artistic rigor and deep emotional engagement that he brings to his immersive and intimate explorations of his hometown in rural Mexico.
2021Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Filmmaking
Miko Revereza receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Filmmaking for the ingenuity and urgency with which he bridges the personal and the political, in works that challenge us to rethink aspects of both documentary filmmaking and the immigrant experience.
2021Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Filmmaking
Nanfu Wang receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Filmmaking for the impact and courage of her riveting documentaries, which are lucid and unflinching in confronting the consequences of systemic oppression and corruption in China.
Selection Process
Three winners are selected in each category through an application process juried by panels of experts in each field.
The Creative Promise Prizewinners each receive a $50,000 cash award and are honored at an awards ceremony in New York City.
Kıvanç Birsoy receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for developing cutting-edge tools to unravel the altered metabolism of cancer cells and uncovering molecular targets for treatment.
Viviana Gradinaru receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for developing next-generation tools in optogenetics, tissue clearing, and gene delivery, with potential therapeutic applications in human diseases.
Martin Jonikas receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for molecular studies on Chlamydomonas, a model photosynthetic organism, with long-term implications for improving food-crop yield and combating climate change.
Yaa Gyasi receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature for deeply engaging writing that unites the twin arcs of West African and African American history, and for her relentless examination of injustices of the past and present in "Homegoing" (2016).
Valeria Luiselli receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature for intelligent, distinctive fiction and nonfiction that interrogates the United States’ immigration system, and bears witness to those left voiceless by mass deportation.
Jenny Xie receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature for the construction of a unique poetic voice that—in its play and invention—examines the essence of perspective and selfhood through an evocative lens in "Eye Level" (2018).
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