This page will contain information on past initiatives, as an archive for the Living Trust.
2025 Grad Summer Fellowship Awardees
| Name | Department | Program, Year | Project Title |
| Asmita Aasaavari | Sociology | PhD, 7th | Who Will Take Care of Me? Gender, Aging and Care in Northeast Connecticut |
| Felicia Blodgett-Duran | Psychological Sciences | PhD, 1st | Sexual Harassment and Attributions for Women |
| Amanda Hiner | Psychological Sciences | PhD, 3rd | Representation Isn’t Equity: Gendered Leadership, Labor, & Structural Inequity in Female-Dominated Trades |
| Madeline Jones Hebert | Human Development and Family Sciences | PhD, 3rd | Social Distance from Perceived Non-conforming Gender Expression and Sexual Orientation |
| Chloe Kwak | Political Science | PhD, 5th | U.S. Patriarchal Intervention and the Gendered Politics of the 2015 Comfort Women Agreement |
| Dongni Liu | Sociology | PhD, 4th | Tradition and Transformation: Gender Identity in the Evolution of Traditional Chinese Medicine |
| Peter McCauley | Human Development and Family Sciences | PhD, 3rd | Exploring the Impacts of Social Support and Gender Affirming Care Among Gender Diverse Adults |
| Avery McGraw | History | PhD, 3rd | Trans Italy: Medicalized Bodies and Trans Identity Formation in the Post-War |
| Safaet Sujan | Allied Health Sciences | PhD, 2nd | Gendered Restrooms and Minority Stress: Experiences of Nonbinary Individuals with Restroom Policies in Public Spaces |
| Nicole Weatherwax | History | PhD, 4th | Contesting Narratives: Black Masculinity in American Horse Racing in the Long Nineteenth-Century |
2024 Grad Summer Fellowship Awardees
| Name | Department | Program, Year | Project Title |
| Ivonne Cotorruelo Perez | Literatures, Cultures and Languages | PhD, 1st | (Updated) Unveiling Gender Fluidity: The Queer Lens in Latin American Trans Cinema |
| Lauren Danielowski | Sociology | PhD, 2nd | Reproductive Rights in the US Commercial Surrogacy Market |
| Mostafa Dastgheib | Psychological Sciences | PhD, 1st | Gender Identity Stigma toward International Students |
| Jacqueline Gunning | Communication | PhD, 2nd | Exploring Disengagement from the U.S. Healthcare System by Women with Contested Illness |
| Constance Holden | History | PhD, 5th | Shaping Belonging: Black Femininity and Self-Fashioning in the Black Argentine Press |
| Kelani Johnson | Sociology | MA, 2nd | Misgendering and Mental Health among Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Adults |
| Anh Le | English | PhD, 2nd | The Female Body as Image: Beauty and Objectification in Postcolonial Literature |
| Madison Malcore | Psychological Sciences | PhD, 3rd | Scale Development for a Measure of Organizational Tolerance for Gender Harassment |
| Katie Peters | Philosophy | PhD, 4th | Far Right Women and Moral Responsibility |
| Ruiyi (Meredith) Zhang | Psychological Sciences | PhD, 1st | An Experimental Study of the Neoliberal Feminist Paradigm and its Implications for Gender Identities, Gender Norms and Reproductive Labor |
2023 Grad Summer Fellowship Awardees
| Name | Department | Program, Year | Project Title | |
| Davina | Barbee | Sociology | PhD, 3rd | Knowledge Production and Mobilization in Transgender Healthcare |
| Jacqueline | Gunning | Communication | PhD, 1st | (Dis)enfranchising Healthcare Experiences of African American, Latina/x, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and Multiracial Women with Autoimmune Disease |
| Carol Ann | Jackson | Sociology | PhD, 8th | Crime and Trauma: Policing and Resilience among Black Girls |
| Darby | Lacey | English | PhD, 5th | Medicine in Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century American Literature: Caution, Cure, and Care from 1950-2021 |
| San | Lee | Political Science | PhD, 2nd | The Importance of Historical and Geographical Conditions to the Recognition of LGBT+ Rights: Comparing the LGBT+ Policies of South Korea and Taiwan |
| Shelby | Masse | Sport Management | PhD, 5th | Women Coaches Experienced Emotional and Invisible Labor: A gendered perspective within sport organizations. |
| Cindy | Pan | Public Health Sciences | MPH, 2nd | Assessing the Impact of Smartphones on the Gender Identity of Adolescent Girls in an Economically Marginalized Urban Community in Mumbai, India |
| Dunahay | Pereyra | Sociology | PhD, 1st | Online Discourses of Disordered Eating in Chronic Illness Spaces |
| Lauren | Perez Bonilla | Geography | PhD | Estudio 809: Male Sex Work and Social Media in the Dominican Republic |
| Md. Abdullah All | Shakil | Anthropology | PhD, 1st | Climate Change Through the Lens of Gender Identity: The Increasing Prevalence of Hysterectomies in The Southern Coast of Bangladesh |
| Alexandra | Stamson | Philosophy | PhD, 1st | Gender-Neutral or Gender-Forward: Considering Women’s Narratives in Popular Media |
| Kiedra | Taylor | English | PhD, 4th | Radical Rage: Black Girlhood and Social Change in Contemporary Young Adult Literature |
| Alexandria | Tomkunas | Human Development and Family Sciences | PhD, 4th | Exploring the Implementation of Equity-Promoting Discipline Practices in Florida Public Schools |
2022 Grad Summer Fellowship Awardees
| Name | Department | Year, Program | Project Title | |
| Kathryn | Angelica | History | 4, PhD | A Nexus of Nineteenth Century Activism: The Lifelong Struggle of Eight Women Reformers |
| Rhys | Hall | Sociology | 6, PhD | Just a Quarter and a Dream: The making of Black and Brown masculine identities through the American Fighting Game Community |
| Anastassiya | Karaban | Economics | 3, PhD | The Role of Reference Point’s Gender in the Response of Labor Supply to Relative Pay |
| Samadrita | Kuiti | English | 6, PhD | Spacetimes of Hope: Feminist and Queer Utopias in Postcolonial Literatures (1905-present) |
| Katherine | Peters | Philosophy | 2, PhD | The Mutual Construction of Religion, Women’s Rights, and KKK Propaganda: Bishop Alma Bridwell White |
| Rianka | Roy | Sociology | 3, PhD | Unions, Communities and Labor Movements: Women in Tech Organize in India and the U.S. |
| Davida | Schiffer | Sociology | 5, PhD | Gender Reveal Parties: The Construction of Gender Through Everyday Discourse |
| Kiedra | Taylor | English | 3, PhD | Prizing Black Girlhood |
| Rachel | Tucker | Department of Communication | 1, PhD | Sexual health stigma: Applying the critical interpersonal and family communication heuristic to difficulty orgasming AND Contesting experiences of illness: Communicative disenfranchisement in difficult patient-provider conversations about chronic overlapping pain conditions. |
| Rui | Wu | Human Development and Family Sciences | 1, MA | Social Media Blast! Asian-American Women’s Twitter-based Experiences of Covid-19 Anti-Asian Discrimination and Expressions of their Mental Health |
| Lihong | Xie | Educational Psychology | 4, PhD | Teachers’ Perceptions and Implementation of Gendered Practices in Classrooms Developing Computational Thinking |
| Dongdong | Yang | Communication | 4, PhD | Predicting the Stigma of Feminism in China: Entanglement with Nationalism |
2021 Grad Summer Fellowship Awardees
| Name | Department | Year, Program | Project Title | |
| Thomas | Briggs | Political Science / Women’s, Gender and Sexualities Studies | 8, PhD | Before ‘Bananas, Beaches and Bases:’ Women and Gender in the History of International Relations, 1900-1980 |
| Carol Ann | Jackson | Sociology | 6, PhD | By Any Means Necessary: Criminalization, Trauma and Resilience of Black Girls and Boys in an Inner-City Neighborhood |
| Kaylee | Jangula Mootz | English | 5, PhD | “Radical Temporalities: Critiques of Liberal History and Racial Progress in Contemporary Native and African American Literature |
| Kristen | Kirksey | Sociology | 5, PhD | Global Priorities and Local Realities: Gendered Impacts of Development in Ethiopia |
| Andrea | Perez | Art and Art History | 2, MFA | Soft Nature and Odd Flowers: Meditations on Queer Ecology |
| Katelyn | Pitcher | Psychological Sciences | 2, PhD | School-based Discriminatory Victimization of Transgender and Gender Non-binary (T&GN) Youth: Understanding the Social-ecologies of Interpersonal and Institutional Discrimination |
| Kenia | Rodriguez | English | 2, PhD | Latinx, Machismo, and Youth: Using Protagonist Who Write to Empower Latina Youth |
| Katrina | Van Dyke | Philosophy | 2, PhD | Gendered Viewpoints and Objectification: Reconsidering Catharine MacKinnon’s Account of Desire and Power |
| Katrina | Webber | Communication Studies | 4, PhD | Examining Stigma, Resilience, & Social Support Amongst Black Women Experiencing Eating Disorder Symptomology |
| Xiaoqiao | Xu | Literatures, Cultures and Languages | 4, PhD | Female Gazing: Mirrors and Portraits in Chinese Female Plays, 1722-1912 |
| Yan | Yan | Literatures, Cultures and Languages | 7, PhD | Chinese Film and Digital Culture in Post-Socialist China |
| Anna | Ziering | English | 6, PhD | Dirty Forms: Masochism and the Revision of Power in Multi-Ethnic U.S. Literature and Culture |
2020 Grad Summer Fellowship Awardees
| Name | Department | Year, Program | Project Title | |
| Asmita | Aasaavari | Sociology | 2, PhD | Paid Domestic Work in Globalizing Delhi: Narratives of Women Domestic Workers |
| Shamayeta | Bhattacharya | Geography | 3, PhD | SHAKTHI : Studying Healthcare Accessibility among Kothi, Transgender and Hijra Individuals |
| Carol | Gray | Political Science | PhD | Portraits of Dourage: Women Advocating for Human Rights across Cultures |
| Kaylee | Jangula Mootz | English | 4, PhD | Radical Temporalities: Critiques of Liberal History and Racial Progress in Contemporary Native and African American Literature |
| Kohel | Khan | Sociology | 5, PhD | In Between Neoliberal Globalization and Nationalism: The Practices of Indian Classical Dance |
| Arpita | Mandal | English | 6, PhD | Ruptured Belonging: Postcolonial Perspectives on Trauma and Nationalism |
| Martha Magdalena | Pawlowski | Art | 3, MFA | Questioning the Fairytale: Resistance, Loss, and Shields |
| Kylar | Schaad | Sociology | 2, MA | The Impact of Transgender and Non-binary Childhood Narratives on Gender Categorization |
| Hannah | Taylor | English | 4, PhD | Trauma Time and Time Travel: Speculative Temporality in Neo-Slave Narratives |
| Debra | Tomasino | Human Development and Family Sciences | 2, PhD | Drag Expression and How it Interfaces with Dragism, Coping, Resilience, and Generativity |
| Yan | Yan | Literatures, Cultures, and Languages | 6, PhD | The Emergence of Commercial Film in Post-socialist China |
| Yuan | Zhang | Human Development and Family Sciences | 3, PhD | Gender Differences in Parental Behavior and Chinese Adolescents’ Mental Health |
2019 Fall Fellow/Mentor Network Tea
All Fellowship Awardees, their advisors and department heads, as well as university administrators, were invited to a networking “tea” during which students gave 2-minute overviews of their research projects, followed by semi-structured conversation/networking and, of course, tea and cookies!
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2019 Grad Summer Fellowship Awardees
| Name | Department | Year/Program | Project Title | |
| Samantha | Archer | Anthropology | 2, PhD | Exploring Inferences of Gender in Archaeological Contexts Using Ancient DNA |
| Sarah | Bertekap | English | 3, PhD | Staging the Unspeakable and the Queer in The Importance of Being Oscar |
| Danielle | Dumaine | History | 6, PhD | Selling Herself: Diane di Prima, Desire, and Commodity in the Postwar United States |
| Declan | Gilmer | Psychological Sciences | 2, PhD | The Impact of Incivility on Transgender Employee Health |
| Micah | Goodrich | English | 6, PhD | Be Futile and Multiply’: (Re)Production, Desire, and the Body in Medieval Discourses of Nature |
| Odia | Kane | Public Health | 2, MPH | The Denial of Black Victimhood: Examining Attitudes of Sexual Assault and Victim-Blaming on a College Campus |
| Mollie | Kervick | English | 4, PhD | Networks of Nurture in Post-Independence Fiction by Irish Women |
| Cristina | Khan | Sociology | 6, PhD | Undoing Borders: A Feminist Exploration of Erotic Performance |
| Samadrita | Kuiti | English | 3, PhD | Ephemeral Utopias: Queer and Feminist Spaces in Postcolonial Literature |
| Nicole | Lawrence | English | 4, PhD | Living in the Impasse: British Writers and Non-Normative Identities, 1880-1940 |
| Timothy | McKay | HDFS | 3, PhD | Gender Identity Disclosure and Multiple Simultaneous Identity Theory |
| Chriss | Sneed | Sociology | 5, PhD | Queer Passages and the Assemblages of Blackness: Black Identity, Social Justice, and Decolonial Possibilities |
| Ruth Z. | Yuste-Alonso | Literatures, Cultures & Languages | 5, PhD | Interrogating the Female Gaze: Gender Analysis of Contemporary Spanish Women’s Filmmaking through Film Genre |
2018 Grad Summer Fellowship Awardees
| Name | Department | Year/Program | ||
| Olivia | Baldwin | Art & Art History | MFA | |
| Shamayeta | Bhattacharya | Geography | 2, PhD | |
| Kerry | Carnahan | English | 5, PhD | |
| Connor | Gallik | Psychology | 3, PhD | |
| Corey | Grantham | Psychology | 1, PhD | |
| Hailey | Greenhalgh | Political Science | 2, PhD | |
| Caner | Hazar | Sociology | 6, PhD | |
| Gonul Hilal | Kuscul | HDFS | 2, PhD | |
| Samantha | Lawrence | HDFS | 1, PhD | |
| Cynthia | Melendez | Literature, Cultures & Languages | PhD | |
| Jordan | Rees | Sociology | 5, PhD | |
| Christine | Rodriguez | Nursing | 2, DNP |