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 2025-2026 Academic Year for use during Winter Break 2025 or summer 2026; 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 fellowship experiences!

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Chang-Lan Fellowship

  • Amelia Hildebrandt ’27 traveled to China to examine how infrastructure development and language use shape pilgrimage at Wutai Shan, revealing state approaches to governing religious space in contemporary China.
  • Losh Li ’28 gained hands-on experience in China working with government documents and correspondence, to improve their skills in conducting historical archival research and engaging critically with state-produced records.
  • Yiwen Li ’28, undertook focused research in China and conversations with contemporary scholars of early Daoist philosophy, with the goal of understanding how concepts such as flexibility, withdrawal, and non-instrumental action are interpreted as concrete practices rather than abstract ideals.

Class of 1963 Fellowship

  • Jeremy Gautama ’26 spent Winter Break 2025 on a photography road trip from Northfield, Minnesota, to Seattle, Washington, exploring how winter light transforms landscape into something transcendent.
  • Sophie Kuliyeva ’27 investigated the cultural and musical significance of the Klezmer violin in NYC’s Jewish and immigrant communities through research and composition.
  • Emma Kutcher ’26 worked with producer Alex Ortberg at Blue Recording Room in Rochester, MN, to record and produce a four-song EP, exploring themes of healing from depressive cycles, anxiety, and critiquing Western party culture and maladaptive coping mechanisms through sound and lyricism.
  • Ezra Praitis Hill ’27 received partial support to spend Summer 2026 attending the 7th Crete Summer School of Linguistics in Greece, an intensive program offering advanced workshops taught by leading researchers.

David C. Donelson ’77 Fellowship

  • Reed White ’29 explored Irish folk music traditions and built an acoustic guitar with the guidance of the Lagan Lutherie Mentors in Bangor, Northern Ireland.

Claire Du ’08 Fellowship

  • Chi Wei (Kelly) Hsu ‘27, Ella Shatz ’28, Corinna Strain ‘27, and Emma Trojan ’27 explored Chinese dyeing and weaving traditions under the guidance of experts on Chongming Island, near Shanghai.

Professor Roy Grow Fellowships

  • Brynn Gaebe ’26 traveled to Japan over Winter Break 2025 (with Anna Teggatz ‘26) to observe how New Year’s Day, the country’s most important cultural and religious holiday, is celebrated, and to visit a series of sacred sites in the Kansai and Kanto regions to learn how community members incorporate these sites into their daily lives and personal religious practices.
  • Karin Grevstad-Nordbrock ’27 traveled to the island of Shikoku in Japan to complete the Shikoku pilgrimage, a 750-mile circular journey that connects 88 Buddhist temples associated with the 9th-century monk Kobo Daishi.
  • Benedict Le ’28 studied Vietnam’s challenges in conserving its flora and fauna, and work being done by organizations like WildAct to preserve and protect the country’s fragile ecosystems.
  • Maddy Sriver ’27 studied traditional Japanese art processes by traveling to major art destinations in Japan, and participated in the art-making process guided by Japanese artists in their studios.
  • Jenny Tang ’28 visited Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in Kyoto, Japan, to research how sacred spaces became embedded in systems of commercial activity in Japan’s premodern and modern societies. Read Jenny’s report (requires Carleton login).
  • Anna Teggatz ’26 traveled to Japan over Winter Break 2025 (with Brynn Gaebe ‘26) to observe how New Year’s Day, the country’s most important cultural and religious holiday, is celebrated, and to visit a series of sacred sites in the Kansai and Kanto regions to learn how community members incorporate these sites into their daily lives and personal religious practices.
  • Max Votruba ’27 explored the intersection of Buddhist philosophy, grassroots development, and community-led social change through working with the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka.

Dale and Elizabeth Hanson Fellowship in Ethics

  • Aiden Fu ’28 explored a justified foundation for the practices of moral responsibility under the threat of Determinism or Incompatibilism.
  • Caroline Stanton ’27 examined the ethics of audience deceit in performance, and whether it is unconscionable to directly deceive an audience even for the sake of a good experience.
  • Nina Wakabayashi ’28 examined the ethical crisis between Alexis Shotwell’s “metaphysics of purity” and “metaphysics of compost” in post-Fukushima Japan.

Independent Research Fellowship

  • Emilia Arabia ’28 investigated how Colombian speakers navigate the different and simultaneous meanings of the word “marica”, a historically pejorative word against homosexual men that is now used by young Colombians as a friendly nominal address or playful insult in casual conversations.
  • Lorna Bohnenstiehl ’27 investigated the systematic desecration of African American burial grounds, situating it within a broader tension between economic development and sacred spaces, with New York City serving as the primary site of inquiry.
  • Ema Ellefson ’27 visited sites in Poland and the US associated with Our Lady of Częstochowa, the 14th-century Marian apparition, to understand differences in experience and meaning.
  • Ava McQuain ’27 took courses at the Chicago Botanic Garden to build skills in botanical illustration.
  • Polly Murray ’27 visited theAnthology Film Archive, a historic and seminal experimental film archive located in the East Village neighborhood of New York City.
  • Yiran Wang ’27 researchedthe early classical world through close readings of classical literature, especially Homer’s Epic Poetry and Early Greek Tragedies (Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides).
  • Temitope Williams ’27 researched education on consent and boundaries in kink communities to analyze conversations on bodily autonomy and a/sexual agency from asexual theoretical lenses.
  • Janet Yan ’27 examinedwhat it is like to prioritize art by concentrating on drawing for 18 days, traveling through the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region of China.

Kelley International Fellowships

  • Duncan MacArthur ’27 traveled to Germany to explore the lives of Stefan George and Albert Schrenck-Notzing, and their fin de siècle milieu, examining similarities and differences between these two occultist thinkers.


Larson International Fellowships

  • Reese Anderson ’26 spent Winter Break 2025 (with Asher Nathan ‘27) in Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile documenting and analyzing culture and landscape of the regions, using writing as an instrument for awareness, change, and inspiration.
  • Hannah Barnabas ’29 completed a structured clinical observation experience in a women’s and children’s hospital in Addis Ababa, shadowing physicians providing maternal and pediatric care, to examine how healthcare providers deliver patient-centered care within resource constraints, cultural contexts, and systemic barriers.
  • Auden Cornell ’27 attended the 7th Crete Summer School of Linguistics in Greece, an intensive organized by leading linguists from around the world.
  • Charlotte Darras ’27 traveled to France to investigate how Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, one of the most recognized painters of eighteenth-century France and official portraitist to Marie Antoinette, was targeted by clandestine pamphlets that attacked her reputation due to her proximity to power.
  • Alice Handelman ’27 traveled to Ireland to connect the history of Irish keening to the portrayal of women’s grief in Irish literature.
  • Stella Johnson ’27 conducted archival research and visited public museums in Paris, Aix-en-Provence, and Antibes, interviewing curators to examine the representation of Algerian indigenous women (Amazigh) in postcards.
  • Benedict Le ’28 spent Winter Break 2025 in Germany and the Czech Republic examining international wildlife conservation efforts.
  • Clara McGee ’27 traveled to Ireland to investigate connections between mathematics and the humanities.
  • Clara Pierce ’27 traveled to Austria to research Pernkopf’s Atlas, an anatomy book made at the University of Vienna, which became embroiled in controversy when its provenance as a Nazi text (containing dissected and illustrated cadavers of people executed under the Nazi regime) came to light.

Emily T. Montgomery ‘00 Memorial Fellowship

  • Asher Nathan ’27 spent Winter Break 2025 (with Reese Anderson ‘26) in Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile documenting and analyzing culture and landscape of the regions, using writing as an instrument for awareness, change, and inspiration.

Paglia Post-Bac Research Fellowship

  • Rilke Grimlund ’26 will join the Armentrout Research Group at the University of Utah to study thermodynamically driven changes in protein structure using cutting-edge instrumentation and computational techniques.
  • Olivia Nicol ’26 will join the Colón-Ramos Lab at Yale University to study genetic, sex-specific differences in sensory navigation in the species C. elegans, with specific attention to molecular and neuronal mechanisms.
  • Brady Rivkin ’26 will join the SoundBrain Laboratory at Northwestern University to study the neurobiology of speech perception and auditory learning.

Allen & Irene Salisbury Fellowship

  • Jared Arroyo Ruiz ’26 spent time in Thailand, exploring weaving history at museums and workshops, in Chiang Mai learning traditional Karen techniques and natural dyeing, and in Bangkok refining skills and observing adaptations of Thai weaving.
  • Austin Flamm ’27 examined the I.V Savitsky State Museum of Art to understand Soviet attitudes toward Russian avant-garde art, and researched how Igor Savitsky was able to collect and preserve banned works with support from the Uzbek Soviet government.

Nancy Wilkie Fellowship for Archaeological Field Experience

  • Marina Deutsch ’28 participated in the Castles in Communities Archaeological Settlement Studies in Ireland program during summer 2026.

Winter 2025 Senior Comps Research Fellowship Recipients

  • Florence Basile (Cinema and Media Studies)
  • Nativ Berkovitz-Rave (Cinema and Media Studies & Cognitive Science)
  • Ryan Bernstein (English)
  • Andra Brown (History)
  • Will Clausman (History, Political Science and International Relations)
  • Adiana Contreras (Cinema and Media Studies)
  • Grace Enz (History)
  • Lillie Geil (English)
  • Riley Gibson (German, History)
  • Ryder Koll-Bravmann (Art History, Cinema and Media Studies)
  • Nora Kushner (Political Science and International Relations)
  • Joshua Lee (Computer Science, Music)
  • Aidan Morris (Political Science and International Relations)
  • Jerry Shang (Asian Studies, History)
  • Anya Sytenkova (Linguistics)
  • Carlos Trejo (Religion)
  • Lucy Watson (History)
  • Hope Yu (History)