2021 Graduate Research Grant Recipients

Mackenzie Berry, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Berry, a graduate student in the MFA poetry program at Cornell University, will use funds from the award to support archival research for continued work on a documentary film.

Rebecca Bracken, Mississippi State University

Bracken, a graduate research assistant at Mississippi State University, will use funds from the award to support avian conservation research in private working forests in the southeastern United States and will aid in providing training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students.

Theresa Burkhart, University of Illinois at Chicago

Burkhart, a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago, will use funds from the award to cover costs of qualitative research on how hospitals support quality end-of-life care.

Lindsay Carlisle, Longwood University

Carlisle, a doctoral student at the University of Virginia, will use funds from the award to support a mixed methods study of remote teaching and learning experiences resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, including perspectives of teachers, students and parents/guardians.

Erica Dasi, University of Maryland, Baltimore Campuses

Dasi, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of South Florida, will use funds to support dissertation research, which seeks to apply community engagement and environmental engineering minimize water scarcity and contamination in small community settings. 

Alice Dell'Era, Florida International University

Dell'Era, a graduate student at Florida International University, will use funds from the award to collect data for her dissertation research on Japan's ideational and normative contributions to the U.S.-Japan Alliance.

Satwik Dutta, The University of Texas at Dallas

Dutta, a graduate student at University of Texas at Dallas, will use funds from the award to support adult-child data collection efforts to develop speech technology solutions which provides automatic assessment of learning among children in various environments such as home, preschool and museums.

Pauline Karanja, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Karanja, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, will use funds from the award to support her research in community resilience following natural disasters that leave the built environments and social institutions of communities with disruptive and permanent damage.

Cagri Kilic, West Virginia University

Kilic, a graduate assistant at West Virginia University, will use funds from the award to support a space robotics research project in Morgantown, West Virginia.

L.S. King, Radford University

King, a graduate student at Radford University, will use funds from the award to support creative research in photopolymer gravure, culminating in a thesis exhibition and supplemental book.

Tina Melamed, The University of Texas at Dallas

Melamed, a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Dallas, will use funds from the award to support research investigating the development of word learning abilities in children and adolescents.

Hannah M. Ming, Virginia Commonwealth University

Ming, a doctoral student at Virginia Commonwealth University, will use funds from the award to support her technology-based dissertation research project in which she will study the psychosocial determinants of maternal health disparities. 

Stephanie Myers, Oklahoma State University

Myers, a Ph.D. graduate student at Oklahoma State University-Center for Health Sciences, will use funds from the award to present at the PsychoNeuroImmunology Research Society and additional conferences to the extent that the funds allow. 

Ana Rabasco, Fordham University

Rabasco, a graduate student at Fordham University, will use funds from the award to support her dissertation research project, which tests the feasibility and efficacy of a mindfulness intervention aimed at reducing suicidality among high risk individuals. 

Chinyere N. Reid, University of South Florida

Reid, a graduate student at the University of South Florida, will use funds from the award to support data collection and analysis of a research project and to attend the American College Health Association Annual Conference. 

Midori Samson, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Samson, a graduate fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will use funds from the award to record, design and distribute a novel online program whereby audience members can interact with her recital performance of Filippo Santoro's "Re-Mote for Bassoon and Applied Technology."

Aman Sharma, University of Massachusetts

Sharma, a Ph.D. candidate at University of Massachusetts Amherst, will use funds from the award to develop new assays in his research experiments related to DNA damage. 

Nikhil Tiwari, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Tiwari, a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will use funds from the award to support critical ethnographic fieldwork on the languaging and literacy experiences of Asian Indian American youth in U.S. schools.

Alex Washburn, Texas Tech University

Washburn, a graduate student at Texas Tech University, will use funds from the award to pay for analyses in research regarding physical and chemical changes in fine-grained sedimentary rocks due to burial and fluid interaction that result in overpressure fracturing and calcite vein precipitation.

Rebekah White, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

White, a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, will use funds from the award to support biological research into the photosynthetic mechanism and stress responses of cyanobacteria.