Ten of 25 of this year’s MacArthur 'Genius Grants' are to African people and include Nigerien-American biophysicist Ibrahim Cissé (the French spelling for Ceesay) and African-Puerto Rican painter Daniel Lind-Ramos.

Of the 10 Black Fellows, Ibrahim Cissé is the only STEM professional.Cissé was born in Niamey, Niger. He recalls that, as a child, seeing movies like Eddie Murphy’s The Nutty Professor provided him his first visuals of a professor and scientist in the United States.

French is the colonial language of Niger and Cissé once enrolled in an English as a second languarge program before he earned his undergraduate degree from historically Black North Carolina Central University.

The 25 fellows each receive $625,000, which they are free to spend however they see fit. The then African or African descendent fellow are: Hanif Abdurraqib, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Ibrahim Cissé, Nicole Fleetwood, Ibram X. Kendi, Daniel Lind-Ramos, Desmond Meade, Jacqueline Stewart, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar.