Sean Noonan ’08 (Urbandale, Iowa) has been awarded the Watson Fellowship for 2008-2009. His project, “Breaking Away,” will examine competitive culture in Africa, Australia, and Europe through study in each of these places and participation in world-class cycling events. The Watson Fellowship is awarded to only 50 senior students every year and is one of this country’s most competitive and prestigious awards. See the full list of grant recipients here.

The faculty grants committee announced the winners of several term-long fellowship awards in January. Joe Chihade, assistant professor of chemistry, Kelly Connole, assistant professor of art, Steve Drew, professor of chemistry, Jim Fisher, John W. Nason Professor of Asian Studies and Anthropology, Jessica Leiman, assistant professor of English, Sigi Leonhard, professor of German, Nikki Melville, assistant professor of music, Kathleen Ryor, associate professor of art history, and Steve Schier, Dorothy H. and Edward C. Congdon Professor of Political Science, all recieved awards to support projects based on the exceptional quality of the proposals.

Andrew Fisher, assistant professor of history, has received a Summer Visiting Scholar Fellowship from the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Chicago to work on his book project this July and August.

Lauren Soth, professor emeritus of art history, served as a mentor to younger scholars in career development workshops held at the annual meeting of the College Art Association. Last summer, he was a member of the National Endowment for the Humanities panel to select fellowship winners in art history.

Cathy Yandell, the W.I. and Hulda F. Daniell Professor of French Literature, Language & Culture, presented a paper titled “The Mentor’s Subversion: Catullus, Muret and Ronsard” at the Sixteenth Century Society conference. As Chair of the Division on Sixteenth Century French Literature of the Modern Language Association (MLA), she organized and presided over the sessions in French Renaissance Studies at the MLA annual meeting. Yandell also has been awarded a Mellon New Directions Fellowship for the 2005-06 academic year. During her term of leave, Yandell will launch the first stages of a Center for the Humanities at Carleton.

Sonja Johnson ’00 was recently awarded one of 12 Mortar Board National Foundation Fellowships for the 2003-2004 academic year. Johnson was a sociology/anthropology major at Carleton and active in Mortar Board. She currently attends Stanford University Law School.

Elizabeth Elmslie Treat ’03 has received a 2003 Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. The fellowship is designed to encourage college graduates to pursue doctoral studies in the humanities. Treat majored in history at Carleton.

Molly Bruder ’03 was mentioned in a May 6 Newsday.com article about this year’s Watson Fellowship recipients. The article highlighted Bruder as one of 65 winners of the 2003 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. The award will fund Bruder’s study of appliqué in four countries over the next year. Bruder is a political science major.

Parna Sengupta, assistant professor of history, was selected as a 2003 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow. The fellowship was established to encourage outstanding researchers at the postdoctoral level to pursue critical education research projects, and provides $50,000 for release time from teaching and other costs associated with research.

Andrew Fink ’04 has been awarded a highly competitive Linguistic Society of America Fellowship to attend the 2003 Linguistic Institute at Michigan State University in summer 2003. At the Institute, Fink will participate in seminars led by some of the most prominent linguists in the field. Fink majored in physics at Carleton.