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Elyn Saks, Southern California Law Professor, Wins MacArthur Genius Grant

By Dan Filler

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is announcing its new fellows today and one of the winners of these so-called "genius grants" is Elyn Saks.  Saks is Associate Dean and Orrin B. Evans Professor of Law, Psychology, and Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences  at Southern Cal's Gould School of Law.  Saks battles with schizophrenia and acute psychosis and authored the 2007 volume, The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness.  Reviews of the book and video of Saks talking about the book are here.

This from the ABA Journal's report on the news:

Saks recalled in an interview with the Washington Post that, after her first psychotic episode at the age of 18, she was told she would never be able to live and work on her own. She told of an episode at Yale Law School when classmates found her singing on a rooftop outside the law library. "I thought there were beings in the sky controlling my brain," she said. Saks told the Associated Press she plans to use the money to continue educating people about the lives of people with mental illness. ''I want to make a difference in how people see schizophrenia,'' Saks said. She is working on a second book about high functioning people with schizophrenia.

Congratulations to Dean Saks.  

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on September 22, 2009 (boomark / email).