VA Psychiatrist Gets 'Genius' Bucks

Jonathan Shay, a staff psychiatrist at the Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic in Boston, has been named one of the winners of this year's $500,000 MacArthur Foundation "genius grants."

The foundation describes Shay as a "passionate advocate for veterans and committed to minimizing future psychological trauma." His "imaginative interpretations of the ancient accounts of battle described in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are deepening our understanding of the effects of warfare on the individual," the organization added.

"My main teachers have been the veterans themselves," Shay says in a video on the foundation's Web site. "And the deliciousness of discovering that Homer's poems were really a mirror that I could hold up to the stories I was hearing from the veterans."

The MacArthur grants, which are paid out over five years, come with no strings attached, and are designed to fund recipients' future endeavors of their own choosing.