As Radcliffe College proposes a new "intellectual terrain" of women, gender and society, one of its own has garnered $245,000 for treading that ground.

Dorothy Q. Thomas, a 1995 Bunting Institute Peace Fellow, won one of the this year's 29 MacArthur Foundation "genius grants" yesterday. Thomas is an international women's rights activist and founded the Women's Rights Project of Human Rights Watch in 1990.

Thomas said she sees the grant as a "license to make a whole heck of a lot of trouble on behalf of the human rights of women."

"I consider it to be a challenge grant to advance the human rights movement and intensify the struggle through mobilization, outreach [and] public education," Thomas said.

Yesterday Radhika Coomaraswamy, the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, announced that her division will focus on injustices within the United States this year.

The news is particularly vindicating for Thomas, who researches and raises awareness on issue of violence and discrimination against women in the United States, and links these wrongs with the human rights movement.

Thomas said her work at the Bunting Institute was a precursor to her current work on the human rights of women in the U.S., including a 347- page report she authored on sexual abuse of women in state prisons in 1996.

Calling her year as a Bunting Fellow "an incredibly mind-opening experience,"

Thomas said she saw Radcliffe as a place to "test out my ideas-a community of women to build connections and share ideas."

"She's smart as a whip and an amazing human being," said Bunting Institute Director Rita Nakashima Brock, who particularly praised Thomas for her help in selecting for Bunting fellows.

"She has a very quick eye for proposals," Brocksaid. "She has both vision and the ability to getthings done."

While some "genius grant" recipients spendtheir no-strings-attached award on cars, housesand travel, Brock said "the money is so wellinvested in her."

"Dorothy basically pioneered human rights toolsto expose human rights abuses," said Regan Ralph,who served as Washington director of the Women'sRights Project of Human Rights Watch under Thomas."She's an inspirational colleague."

This year, MacArthur grant winners includeauthor Ishmael Reed and cattle rancher WilliamMcDonald.

One winner, Janine Antoni, once attachedherself to an electroencephalograph and spent thenight sleeping in a loom. She later used the loomto weave a blanket featuring the brain wavepatterns from her dreams.

Other Bunting fellows who have won theMacArthur Foundation "genius grants" in the pastinclude Anna Deavere Smith, head of the newInstitute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue atHarvard, and Professor of Education SaraLawrence-Lightfoot.

"I associate 'genius' with madness," Thomassaid. "And if there's anyone that's crazy, it'sthe selection committee," she quipped modestly.

Raised in Locust Valley, N.Y., Thomas graduatedfrom Georgetown University in 1981 with a degreein English.

She remained at Georgetown to earn a master'sdegree in literary theory and women's studiesbefore moving to Namibia, where she monitored thenation's independence from South Africa.

Thomas, 38, currently lives in New York City