A woman who helps students go to college with their "posse," a psychiatrist who treats combat veterans and a museum director on Alaska's Kodiak Island are among the 24 winners of this year's MacArthur Foundation "genius grants."

The $500,000 fellowships were to be announced Tuesday by the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Recipients can use the money however they wish.

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Another fellow is Dr. Jonathan Shay, a staff psychiatrist at the Department of Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic in Boston. His two books — "Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character" and "Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming" — employ ancient heroes to help understand the effects of war on individuals.

Shay, 65, is an advocate for choices he believes can be made before soldiers are deployed to aid their psychiatric well-being.

"War is war is war is war," Shay said. "... What's important about it is not what makes it unique, but what makes it a universal experience for the returning soldiers."