Photo courtesy of John D. & Catherine T. and the MacArthur Foundation.

D.C. has raised another genius.

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a 31 year-old playwright who currently lives in New York, is one of nearly two dozen 2016 MacArthur Fellows who are “breaking new ground in areas of public concern, in the arts, and in the sciences, often in unexpected ways,” MacArthur Foundation president Julia Stasch said in a statement.

D.C. native Jacobs-Jenkins joins a batch of 23 people—most of whom reside in New York and California—to receive this year’s so-called “genius grant” of $625,000 over five years, with no strings attached. He is the youngest of the group, which also includes Baltimore artist and jewelry maker Joyce J. Scott.

MacArthur recognizes Jacobs-Jenkins for plays such as An Octoroon, which showed at the Woolly Mammoth in June. The play is an adaptation of and critical commentary on the 1859 original. In all of his works, he engages “frankly with complicated issues around identity, family, class, and race,” according to the foundation.

When he got the call that he’d been chosen, “I thought I was having a psychotic break for a moment — well, for many moments, actually,” Jacobs­-Jenkins told The Washington Post. A graduate of St. John’s College High School in Northwest, he studied at Princeton, New York University, and Juilliard. And he grew up writing fiction and going to see plays at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and Studio Theatre, according to The Post.

In 2004, MacArthur awarded native Washingtonian and author Edward Jones with the grant. And in recent years, other award recipients have been linked to the District, including author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, who attended Howard University.

Of his work, Jacobs­-Jenkins says in a video: “I’ve always believed that one of the most incredible and important things about the theater, and all art really, is that we’re creating a safe space for all feelings, but especially ugly feelings.”