Fresno poet and author Juan Felipe Herrera was one of 22 people awarded a 2024 MacArthur Fellowship, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced Tuesday.

The fellowships, known informally as MacArthur “genius grants,” are awarded to scientists, artists, musicians, historians, and others who have exemplified creativity and have a track record of significant achievement as well as future promise. It comes with a no-strings award of $800,000 paid quarterly over five years.

Herrera, the 75-year-old namesake of a Fresno Unified elementary school, was acknowledged for his work in uplifting Chicano culture and his writings in both English and Spanish that include poetry as well as children’s literature.

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He was hailed by the foundation as “a distinctive voice and inspiration for generations of writers, Herrera centers the unprotected while imbuing his work with hope and a sense of possibility.”

He is the author of over 30 books, including “Senegal Taxi” (2013); “Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems” (2008); and “Border-Crosser with a Lamborghini Dream” (1998).

Herrera, who served as poet laureate for California in 2012 to 2015 and was Poet Laureate of the United States from 2015 to 2017, is professor emeritus at the University of California, Riverside, and at Fresno State, where he coordinates the Laureate Lab Visual Wordist Studio.

His poem “Sunriders” was engraved on a plaque sent on NASA’s unmanned Lucy mission in 2021.