2021 Dissertation Fellowship Recipients

Anton L.V. Avancena

University of Michigan

Avancena is a Ph.D. candidate at University of Michigan in health services organization and policy. His research looks at groups who have experienced increases in high-risk drinking and aims to estimate the incidence of alcohol-related liver disease by age, gender, race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

Brittnie E. Bloom

San Diego State University

Bloom is a Ph.D. candidate at San Diego State University in public health. Her research focuses on the responsiveness of sex education to the needs of LGBTQ+ undergraduate students related to experiences of sexual violence and harassment.

Jenna M. Hartley

North Carolina State University

Hartley is a Ph.D. candidate at North Carolina State University in parks, recreation, and tourism management. Her research examines the role of students as environmental change-agents in their communities, specifically on the topic of marine debris, or plastic pollution.

Thomas Herbst

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Herbst is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Missouri in volcanology. His research focuses on what controls the various styles of volcanic eruption.
 

Kathleen Hupfeld

Elon University

Hupfeld is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Florida in applied physiology and kinesiology. Her dissertation research uses brain imaging and brain stimulation to investigate how the neural control of movement changes with aging and affects older adults' walking and balance.

Renee Jordan

Northern Arizona University

Jordan is a Ph.D. candidate at Northern Arizona University in biological sciences. Her dissertation research seeks to identify health effects associated with environmental contaminant exposure in fish living on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska.

Ann Meejung Kim

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Kim is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in composition and rhetoric. Her dissertation explores how landscapes associated with national trauma, notably, the Japanese occupation, Korean War and the U.S. military presence, became a rhetorical vehicle to communicate national identity and global status.

Elaine Penagos

University of Miami

Penagos is a doctoral candidate at Emory University in religion. Her dissertation research explores orisha stories from La Regla de Ocha as a form of religious poetics that demonstrate the power, potential and theo-sociological implications of the reimagining of religious worlds.

Emily Sample

George Mason University

Sample is a Ph.D. candidate at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University. Her research spans peacebuilding, climate change adaptation, environmental justice, gender, and mass atrocity prevention.

Shawna Sisler

The University of Utah

Sisler is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Utah College of Nursing. Her research focuses on the suicidal ideation in college students and proposes a conceptual model that identifies biopsychosocial phenotypes using big data and structural equation modeling to create realistic prevention strategies.