Mass. plankton expert awarded $800K ‘genius grant’

Benjamin Van Mooy is a new MacArthur Fellow, the foundation announced on Thursday.

A Massachusetts oceanographer has been awarded a “genius grant” to continue his research on microbial organisms, the MacArthur Foundation announced on Tuesday.

Benjamin Van Mooy is a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth, where he studies how plankton can impact delicate food webs, climate regulation, and carbon storing in the ocean.

“When I first got the call from the MacArthur Foundation, I was absolutely convinced they dialed the wrong number,” Van Mooy said in a statement.

The MacArthur Fellows Program recognizes a handful of “extraordinarily creative individuals” each year, the program said. In addition to the title, the foundation awards each individual fellow a grant of $800,000.

“These plankton, and the molecules they contain, are my passion,” Van Mooy said in a statement on MacArthur’s website. “The role of plankton in critical ocean processes remains a mystery, but the molecules in plankton, particularly lipids, can help us ‘see’ plankton, and thus the ocean, in entirely new ways.”

Van Mooy has been with the WHOI since 2003 and was recently appointed Interim Vice President for Science and Engineering, the institution said.

Of the 22 fellows named this year, two others are New England residents. Providence-based media artist Tony Cokes and Yale professor Martha Muñoz both received the grant as well.