Each year Carleton’s fellowships make it possible for a number of students to engage in research, explore their passions, or embark on an adventure. All of these opportunities are made possible by the generosity of Carleton alumni, parents and friends of the college. The following is a summary of fellowships awarded during the 2023-2024 Academic Year for use during Winter Break 2023 or summer 2024; the list also includes this year’s Paglia Post-Bac Research Fellows, who will pursue research for the two years following their graduation from Carleton. Visit our Instagram @carletonfellowships to learn more about felllowship experiences!

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Chang-Lan Fellowship

  • Huizi Cao ’27 will retranslate and reinterpret the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi’s ‘Joy of Fish,’ using a review of the literature and consulting with scholars in China and the US during summer 2024.
  • Per Johnson ’26 will cultivate Chinese language skills and learn about Chinese culture through a summer 2024 immersive language program in Beijing. 
  • Allison Tran ’26 will spend summer 2024 on an exploration of the driving factors and impact of e-commerce on China’s economy to quantify the economic influence of digital shopping, analyze the role of online influencers in shaping consumer behavior, and evaluate the economic implications of the growing e-commerce sector.
  • Rhys Wonacott ’25 will spend summer 2024 in China examining how certain foods that are a core part of traditional Chinese medicine can be integrated into western diets to deliver both immediate and longer-term health benefits. Read Rhys’s paper (Carleton login required)!
  • Edin Xu ’26 will compose Taoist music using the traditional Taoist instruments known as the Xiao and Guzheng, learning the music directly from expert musicians by visiting multiple Taoist temples in China during summer 2024. Check out Edin’s video!

Class of 1963 Fellowship

  • Mariko Bolton ’25 will attend Haystack Mountain School of Craft’s summer 2024 workshop “Pour and Slip: Experiments in Plaster Mold Making and Slip Casting” as preparation for a Comps project in Studio Art.
  • Katie O’Leary ’25 will travel to Berlin, Germany, during summer 2024 to access research materials related to the career of Bertolt Brecht, with a particular emphasis on gender in Brecht’s life and work.

David C. Donelson ’77 Fund Fellowship

  • David Fulguera ’26 will travel to Brazil during the summer of 2024 and create a journal-driven guide to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

Professor Roy Grow Fellowship

  • Rachel Azan ’26 will explore Chinese culture in Malaysia during summer 2024 through martial arts, pewter-making, and cuisine.
  • Mauricio Badillo Moorman ’24 explored the synergies between mindfulness practices and cinematic creativity within cultural contexts of Thailand over Winter Break.
  • George Conlan ’25 will spend summer 2024 preparing a history comps project through study of a selection of Japanese maps, most of which were created between 1918 and 1945, that depict Japanese-controlled territories outside of the home islands.
  • Patrick Djerf ’24 traveled to Japan over Winter Break to explore connections humans form across different cultures with similar rock formations.
  • Clay Haddock ’24 undertook intensive training in martial arts over Winter Break at the Tiger Muay Thai facility in Phuket, Thailand, for personal growth, cultural appreciation, and artistic documentation.
  • Alice McClain ’24 spent Winter Break exploring how Singapore’s leading science museums are integrating technology into their galleries to better engage visitors.
  • Sonia Shah ’24 shadowed physicians and volunteered at the Gram Seva Trust in Gujarat, India, over Winter Break, to build knowledge about rural healthcare and development within fields such as Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Surgery. (Read Sonia’s report (Carleton login required)!)
  • Harrison Redfern ’26 will spend part of summer 2024 traveling through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia.
  • Yixuan (Tori) Shen ’25 will spend part of summer 2024 investigating the current housing situation of female rural migrant workers in Beijing and Shanghai, using both quantitative and qualitative methods.  
  • Bennet Tefu ’25 will visit Japan during summer 2024 to create a short documentary film about how Japan’s labor laws and cultural heritage affect the treatment of workers in the Japanese animation industry.
  • Caleb Wataoka ’24, Kenton Young ’24, and John Garay Hernandez ’24 traveled to Japan over Winter Break to study the origins of mukashibanashi and how these folktales influence beliefs and values in Japan.

Dale and Elizabeth Hanson Fellowship

  • Abdullah Ansar ’25 will study the intersection of Islamic philosophy/mysticism and how the Islamic philosophical framework can be used to ground an environmental ethic that focuses on preservation and sustainable use.
  • Jonah Docter-Loeb ’25 will draw on primary environmental ethics literature and practical case studies of invasive species management to examine the moral and ecological complexities of living in a biologically globalized world.
  • Jackson Eippert ’27 will consider the question of whether we can coherently justify our ethical assertions such that they are more than opinions, approaching the question through studying the literature on moral skepticism to gain a better understanding of the arguments for doubting ethics in the first place, and moving on to researching counter arguments.
  • Mattias Hoz ’25 will examine divergent philosophical approaches to assisted suicide, contrasting Kantian dignity/humanity-based arguments with Judeo-Christian analyses that draw from Thomas Aquinas’ writings, and will investigate anti-Aquinas consequentialist views, which deemphasize the distinction between active and passive euthanasia (‘killing’ vs. ‘letting die’).
  • Ronnie Ross ’26 will investigate how and when it is permissible to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment in pediatrics by examining current laws and guidelines, opinions of bioethicists, clinicians, and first-hand experiences of caregivers.
  • David Thurston ’25 will write a literature review of situationism and the Social Intuitionist Model, which refute the notion that we have either innate or rational moral systems.

Independent Research Fellowships

  • Beck Arnow ’24, Siraj Bell ’24, and Demetrius Blackmon-Jimenez ’24 spent Winter Break studying how museums and parks in different parts of the Southwest view and display local geology. Their plan is to integrate their findings into displays in Carleton’s geology department.
  • Eden Bergene ’25 will undertake an in-depth study health care in Ethiopia through the lens of healthcare economics, during summer 2024.
  • Annie Bergmann ’25 will explore trends in archival practices related to and the jobs of archivists over the last century, with a particular emphasis on how the shift to digital formats affects both, during summer 2024.
  • Ilan Carter ’25 will learn relevant, modern, and geographically-specific urban food cultivation techniques, while researching and documenting the efficacy and success of different Twin Cities urban agricultural projects, during summer 2024.
  • Alisa Cherkashina ’25 will spend part of summer 2024 creating a fashion design collection inspired by the movement of watercolors.
  • Jonah Docter-Loeb ’25 and Caitlin McWilliams ’25 will explore human-beaver coexistence dynamics in Washington State during summer 2024.
  • Ami Endo ’25 will fold and sculpt Ryujin, or “Dragon God,” a famous and intricate origami design, from a single uncut sheet of paper, a project that will take 300+ hours over the course of summer 2024.
  • David Fulguera ’26 spent Winter Break in Boliviato exploring the fine line between humor as entertainment in caricatures, and its potential for becoming dehumanizing and offensive, both historically and in contemporary digital media.
  • Abigail Goff ’25 went to Paris over Winter Break to study how the exhibition, “Les valises de Jean Genet,” which showcases the life of the non-Arab French playwright Jean Genet—a gay man, communist party member, and anarchist—to research how the exhibit changes perspectives on Arab-Western intellectual exchange.
  • Anna Greenlee ’24 went to Spain over Winter Break to interview coaches of women’s clubs and children’s leagues to gauge what steps need to be taken to improve the quality of leadership in Spanish women’s football, and in women’s sports around the world.
  • Graci Huff ’25 conducted interviews and participant observations at the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s Empowerment Retreat in Pasco, Washington during spring 2024.
  • Linnea Lentfer ’25 will explore connection to place in the context of colonialism and conservation through work with the Hoonah Indian Association’s, a sovereign tribe of Tlingit people, in Gustavus, Alaska during summer 2024.
  • Nhi Luong ’25 researched Luis Barragan’s work as it represents formalism, mysticism, and a part of Mexican history by visiting his buildings in Mexico to reflect on how they contribute to a larger and intentional environment, over Winter Break 2023.
  • Kaia Neal ’25 will attend JIRP, a glaciology and geophysics program focused on student research projects done over the course of an 8-week traverse across the Juneau Icefield from Atlin, Canada to Juneau, Alaska, during summer 2024.
  • Victoria Semmelhack ’25 will use summer 2024 to examine how a lack of access to adequate maternal support resources perpetuates generational systemic inequality, in addition to  a generationally high maternal mortality rate in two Appalachian cities.
  • Cyrus Shields ’26 conducted in-depth research of the controversial proposal being considered by the Massachusetts Port Authority to expand the Laurence G. Hanscom Field Airport of Bedford, Massachusetts by adding 27 hangars, which will primarily serve private jets.
  • Henry Stier ’25 spent Winter Break on campus exploring methods of music composition through hands-on learning, culminating in a suite of compositions flowing seamless into one another.
  • Alex Tananbaum ’25 will use summer 2024 to explore themes of scavenging and consumption through the lens of Judaism, working with multi-media artist Mei Jardstrom to learn the process of finding, preserving, and creating art from found animal carcasses.
  • Elias Tannira ’25 will spend summer 2024 exploring the relevance of philosophical texts about the ontology and phenomenology of colonized subjects for understanding the Palestinian experience
  • Abbi Vosen ’25 will spend summer 2024 learning about different aspects of mural creation through library research on materials, history, and mural production, visiting several mural sites in the Twin Cities, and  meeting with several mural artists.
  • Xiomara Winston ’26 will spend two weeks of summer 2024 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, speaking with various community organizers, physicians, and clinicians about queer healthcare, giving special attention to the role of technology in connecting people with health care services.
  • Sequoia Wyckoff ’25 will use studio space at the Northern Clay Center during summer 2024 to  explore ideas of community, domestic life, and friendship in art, through an eight-week ceramics project.

Kelley International Fellowships

  • Julia Dunn ’25 aims to learn more about the complexity of Caribbean women’s leadership during summer 2024, by engaging in policy research on individual women leaders, as well as discussion with leaders of women’s organizations.
  • Zaria Kelly ’25 will travel to the United Kingdom to see Roman archaeological sites relevant to research on culture and identity formation in Roman Britain, as well as attend an epigraphy workshop to improve the skills needed to use inscriptional evidence.
  • Zaeda Peter ’25 will assess the economic and cultural implications of tourism for Grenada, examining both its benefits and challenges, exploring such questions as whether and how tourism contributes to economic growth, employment generation, and infrastructure development on the island.

Larson International Fellowships

  • Ryan Bernstein ’26 will travel to Iten, Kenya, during summer 2024 to spend five weeks learning about the town’s unique running history and culture, including exploring the Kenyan approach to running and experiencing the lifestyle and community that has produced many of the best distance runners in history.
  • Awa Cisse ’27 will spend August 2024 exploring the different ways three Moroccan organizations seek to increase women’s empowerment through technical skill development, literacy enrichment, and professional development programming.
  • Ethan Cline-Cole ’25 and Markus Gunadi ’25 will travel together to Indonesia, documenting daily life and their experiences through a variety of artistic approaches.
  • Mehreen Shahid ’25 will spend summer 2024 volunteering with volunteer with Dream Big, an English-teaching NGO while informally exploring Sunni-Shia coexistence in Bahrain.
  • Ashton Macklin ’27 will analyze the prominence and politics of urban agriculture and permaculture in German cities such as Berlin, as well as investigate the applicability of German urban agricultural practices to non-European environments.
  • Arthur Koenig ’25 will investigate the relationship between Egypt and Greece through travel writing during summer 2024, visiting Greek churches and cultural centers in Cairo and Alexandria, exploring the life and work of C.P. Cavafy, and tracing the travels of Egyptian travel writers in Athens.
  • Abigail Goff ’25 will investigate social housing in North Africa during summer 2024, focusing on Tunis, Tunisia, and Rabat, Morocco and employing material religion methodology.
  • Ethan Kinsella ’25 will visit two hotbeds of the Art Nouveau style—Glasgow and Vienna—during summer 2024 to investigate its twofold role, both as the last gasp of beauty in European aesthetics and as the forefather of modernism.
  • Anna Ursin ’25 will interview women in Ethiopia about their experiences with female-specific pain conditions during summer 2024, in order to better understand how they conceptualize their pain and how it impacts their identities, self concepts, and quality of life.
  • Eli Watt ’25 will spend summer 2024 exploring an interest in regenerative shepherding practices by living and working with shepherds and shepherding communities throughout Spain.
  • Jens Bartel ’25 and Daanyal Raja ’25 traveled to Austria to research how music and art, both past and present, meld to form Vienna’s contemporary identity.
  • Katelyn Hemmer ’24 traveled to Spain to learn about how the Andalusia region balances sustainability, soil and landscape regeneration, community, tourism, and economic development as an agricultural hotspot of the country.
  • Drew Rodriguez-Michel ’25 explored the queering of space and the body in Amsterdam, both inside and outside typical queer hubs (Reguliersdwarsstraat; cafes; the Red Light district) in hopes of understanding the notion of an “embodied” versus fradmentary queer identity.
  • Katherine Thomas ’25 researched Luis Barragan’s work as it represents formalism, mysticism, and a part of Mexican history by visiting his buildings in Mexico to reflect on how they contribute to a larger and intentional environment.

Paglia Post-Bac Research Fellowship

  • Liam Kennedy ’24 will join the research group of Dr. Lori Zoellner at the University of Washington.
  • Tosh Le ’24 will join the research group of Dr. Richard Majeski at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
  • Phoebe Sinner ’24 will join the research group of Dr. Gitta Coaker at the University of California, Davis.

Allen and Irene Salisbury Fellowship

  • Zhanran Chen ’27 (along with Owen Xu ’27  and Cindy Zhao ’27) will explore the impact of staying, migration, and immigration on people’s connections to their hometown through oral historical work in Guanqi and Fouzhou, China, during summer 2024.
  • Annanya Sinha ’25 will use participant observation, interviews, photography, and documentary filmmaking to examine how trans and gender-diverse identities navigate complex socio-economic, cultural, national, colonial, and religiously syncretic “Hijra” traditions in South Asian locations.
  • Siddharth Srinivasan ’25 will spend summer 2024 exploring how the Indian diaspora in Singapore uses religion to construct diasporic identity, focusing on three religious identities and how their practices, beliefs, and symbols inform the way adherents’ navigate the ambiguity of connecting with their homeland and belonging in their adopted country.
  • Owen Xu ’27 (along with Zhanran Chen ’27 and Cindy Zhao ’27) will explore the impact of staying, migration, and immigration on people’s connections to their hometown through oral historical work in Guanqi and Fouzhou, China, during summer 2024.
  • Cindy Zhao ’27 (along with Zhanran Chen ’27 and Owen Xu ’27)  will explore the impact of staying, migration, and immigration on people’s connections to their hometown through oral historical work in Guanqi and Fouzhou, China, during summer 2024.

Nancy Wilkie Fellowship for Archaeological Field Experience

Talia Loevy-Reyes ’27 will participate in the Town Marie excavation–a 19th century site in Queensland, Australia–to help uncover industrial history.

Winter Break 2023 Senior Comps Research Fellowship Recipients:

  • Tori Aguado ’24 (Cinema and Media Studies)
  • Jonah-Kai Baker ‘24 (Religion)
  • T’airra Champliss ’24 (Computer Science/Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies
  • Sigrid Edstrom ’24 (Religion)
  • Emmett Forster ‘24 (History)
  • Hsar Sar Lwin ’24 (Studio Art)
  • Ren Manuel ’24 (Art History/Studio Art)
  • Marko Stojanovic ’24 (Cinema and Media Studies)