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Jeffrey Brenner, md ’95, receives macarthur award
“Genius”
The Master Storyteller
phone. Unfamiliar with the number, he sent it to voice mail. Fortunately, the caller phoned back immediately, this time on the office line, and Dr. Brenner picked up. He was stunned to find himself speaking to a representative of the MacArthur Foundation, calling to congratulate him for having been named as a 2013 MacArthur Fellow. Dr. Brenner was sworn to secrecy for three weeks; he could tell only one person, his wife. Twenty-four in all, this year’s “Genius Award” recipients include a typically diverse group: in addition to Dr. Brenner, a primary care physician, they include a medical historian, an immigration lawyer, a choreographer, a paleobotanist, a jazz pianist, and a planetary scientist. The description of that “day like all days” afternoon, with its unpredicted climax, is characteristic of Dr. Brenner. He is a low-key storyteller, with a natural ability to re-create a scene. Whether he is describing an urban shooting or explaining a graph depicting emergency room visits, he completely engages the listener. Dr. Brenner earned his bachelor’s degree in biology at Vassar College and entered the MD/PhD program at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, looking forward to a research career in the neurosciences. However, after four years in Vassar’s self-motivating environment, he was uncomfortable, he says, with “the regimentation and dry memorization” of the
COURTESY OF THE MACARTHUR FOUNDATION
n 2013, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awarded a fellowship to Jeffrey Brenner, MD ’95, executive director, Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers, and medical director, Urban Health Institute/Advanced Care Center, Cooper University Health Care. The MacArthur Fellowships, informally known as “Genius Awards,” recognize people who have demonstrated “exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishment and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work.” MacArthur Fellows receive $625,000 over a five-year period, with no strings attached.
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ast fall, on a typically hectic afternoon, Dr. Brenner was addressing a succession of pressing issues when a call came in on his cell
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