Nancy Rabalais, a marine ecologist dedicated to studying the "dead zones" in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere, has won one of this year's MacArthur "genius" grants. Rabelais directs the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium in Chauvin, La., and, since the mid-1980s, she has conducted the major monitoring program collecting basic data on seasonal oxygen levels and nutrients in Gulf waters.

Julia Whitty reports for Mother Jones October 2, 2012. [2]