Awards Announced: Summer Immersive Fellowship Funding

July 10, 2020

Humanities Engage is delighted to announce that 15 students have received funding for remote summer immersive fellowships.

Summer immersives provide Ph.D. students with the opportunity to gain experiences with host organizations in collaborative, mission-focused project work drawing on their high-level skills as researchers and writers.

Check our blog later in the summer to learn about the experiences the following students are gaining with their host organizations:

Charles Athanasopoulos (Communication) is working with Monument Lab to expand an on-going performance art project - Sweet Chariot, an interactive video scavenger hunt of African American history, conceptualized and directed by artist Marisa Williamson - and to expand their archival database of public art works funded by Confederate legacy groups.

Eve Barden (Film & Media Studies (Slavic concentration))’s Monument Lab project is to produce educational videos on historical topics for Dr. Patricia Eunji Kim’s Queens Who Rule (QWR), an emerging multi-media public history platform that brings life to the art, stories, and political experiences of women throughout history.

At the Juvenile Justice-Involved Youth project in UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, Dominique Branson (Linguistics) is analyzing and synthesizing data related to Black girls' experiences and involvement with the juvenile justice system in Allegheny County to develop an equity report that informs Pittsburgh stakeholders about ways to better serve at-risk Black girls in the city.

With RefocusED, Inc., Nelson Felipe Castañeda Rojas (Hispanic Languages and Literatures) is supporting the Voices Against Violence Summer Camp and building research on trauma-sensitive youth educational models, practices, curriculum, and programs.

Courtney Colligan (Theater Arts) is collecting qualitative, narrative interviews from alumni of GirlGov, the Women and Girls Foundation’s flagship civic engagement program for high-school aged young women interested in developing as our next generation of leaders, advocates, and change-makers, and creating a digital yearbook.

As a Remote Volunteer Citizenship Class Translator & Teaching Assistant with the Catholic Charities of Los Angeles’ Citizenship Education Program, Darrelstan Ferguson (Hispanic Languages and Literatures) is helping non-English speakers prepare for the English test/interview that is necessary for obtaining permanent U.S. citizenship.

Treviene Harris (English) is using her experience in advocacy, research, and community involvement to provide Fresh Spirit Wellness for Women, a domestic violence counseling agency, with administrative assistance in database management, grant research, and grant writing.

Kim Hoover (English) is supporting the research Awaken Pittsburgh conducts on their mindfulness programming in three areas: Children/Youth Programming (social and emotional regulation); Implicit Bias Awareness and Dismantling; and Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness Practices/Delivery.

At Monument Lab, Janina Lopez (History of Art and Architecture) is assisting artist Michelle Angela Ortiz with her Hemispheric Latinx Artist Research project; providing research for an in-progress database about monuments along or upon the U.S./Mexico border; and developing projects with the information acquired for the database.

Patoimbasba Nikiema (French) is providing individual and small group support to students at ARYSE, a student-centered organization that supports immigrant and refugee youth in becoming engaged, confident, and celebrated members of the community.

Sean Nonnenmacher (Linguistics) is creating a StoryBank, a database of recorded personal narratives from Phoenix lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) youth, among others, for GLSEN Phoenix, which will pilot “data” in the form of approximately 25-30 personal narratives.

Brenda Sólkez (Hispanic Languages and Literatures) is following the methodology of Teaching Spanish to Heritage Speakers to teach a summer camp for Casa San Jose, a non-profit organization based in Pittsburgh that supports and advocates for the integration and self-sufficiency of Latinx and Hispanic communities.

For the Walpole Children’s Theatre, Christopher Staley (Theater Arts) is doing archival and historical work to organize the group’s 50-year history in a clear, schematic form; researching grant opportunities; and assisting with their summer shows over Zoom.

Mathew Tembo (Music) is collaborating with the Bloggers of Zambia, a civic organization that explores the use of virtual platforms as alternative spaces in which Zambia’s citizenry can participate in the democratic process of the country, to engage interlocutors (particularly women in the music industry), edit blog posts, enhance content, and facilitate capacity building of the organization.

In order to help improve Radical Monarchs’ administrative efficiency, Taylor Waits (English) will be working on grant tracking, database management, and communications for the non-profit organization that serves as an alternative to the Scout movement for girls of color, aged 8-13.