Meet 15 CLAS graduate students awarded prestigious fellowships to support their research and creative work

April 22, 2024

By Charlotte Brookins 

A total of 15 graduate students have been named prestigious fellows by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, with five receiving 2024-25 Marcus Bach Fellowships and ten receiving 2024 CLAS Dissertation Writing Fellowships. 

Congratulations to these deserving students! 

Marcus Bach Fellowship 

The Marcus Bach Fellowship, named for the 1942 University of Iowa graduate of the same name, is awarded to graduate students in the humanities to support the completion of an MFA project or doctoral dissertation. The fellowship’s goal is to foster intercultural communication and the understanding of diverse philosophies and religious perspectives.  

Each fellow receives a semester of support including a $10,700 salary, a tuition scholarship for 2 semester hours credit, and more. 

The five recipients for the 2024-25 school year are: 

• Caelainn Barr, Department of English (Nonfiction Writing Program), "Written in the Land" 
  Barr’s project is a memoir grounded in archival research and interviews that explores the intersection of religion, spirituality in nature and family history. The work is set against the backdrop of conflict in in Northern Ireland. 

• Nathan Chaplin, Department of History, "Surveying the Tropics, Constructing the Heartland: Identify Formation in Nicaragua and the Midwest" 
  Chaplin’s project investigates the alliances formed between Nicaraguan and Midwestern elites as they attempted to manage public health crises, state policy, and capital investment during the 19th and 20th centuries. 

• Spencer Jones, Department of English (Nonfiction Writing Program), “All Skillful in the Wars” 
  Jones’s thesis explores political and theological tensions in the lives of radical-revolutionary schoolteachers Harriet Wheeldon and Simone Weil. 

• Xiaoyan Kang, Department of Theatre Arts, “The Words of Ants" 
  Kang’s thesis takes the form of a play drawing inspiration from the 1983 script Nüshu, or the script of women. Through it, the playwright intends to explore how individual experiences are interpreted to serve a particular narrative. 

• Mariana Mazer, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, “The book as an object and container of multiple stories" 
  Mazer’s dissertation explores the relationship between the book as a physical object and the narratives it contains, ultimately printing and binding eight copies of the finished thesis. 

CLAS Dissertation Writing Fellowship 

The CLAS Dissertation Writing Fellowship is awarded annually to 10 graduate students, providing time and funding for the completion of a PhD dissertation. The fellowship provides a total of $14,000 to each student. 

• Brittany Anderson, Department of Anthropology, “Attunements of Care: The Role of Housekeeping and Laundry Staff in Midwest Continuing Care Retirement Communities” 
  Anderson’s dissertation explores the roles of housekeeping and laundry staff in continuing care retirement communities play in the complexity of providing care for residents. 

• Isabel Baldrich, School of Art and Art History, “Caribbean Stain: Erasure and Creoleness in Parisian Art” 
  Baldrich’s dissertation intends to emphasize the importance of French Caribbean heritage in 18th and 19th century French art. 

• Francisca Diaz, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, “The Role of Numerical and Nonnumerical Magnitudes in Discriminative Behavior: A Comparative Study” 
  In her dissertation, Diaz seeks to compare the roles of numerical and nonnumerical properties in effective information analysis. 

• Dominic Dongilli, Department of American Studies, “Interspecies America: Animal Lives and Reproductive Politics at the Smithsonian National Zoo” 
  Dongilli’s thesis examines encounters between human and nonhuman animals at the Smithsonian National Zoo, arguing that zoos mediate U.S. identities, cultures, and environmental futures in which humans and nonhuman bodies interact. 

• Adriana Fernández I Quero, Department of Mathematics, “Rigidity results for group von Neumann algebras with diffuse center” 
  Fernández I Quero’s dissertation explores von Neumann algebras, a kind of mathematical framework initially created for studying particle physics, and its relationship with diverse subjects such as continuous model theory. 

• Katharine Gilbert, Department of French and Italian, “Navigating Language Hierarchies in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean: Women, Memory, Communities” 
  Gilbert’s research focuses on the use of language by Francophone writers from former French colonies in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean. 

• Sun Joo Lee, School of Music, “Therapeutic Singing and Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract Exercises for Individuals with Parkinson’s Disease” 
  Lee’s thesis examines the benefits of semi-occluded vocal track exercises and therapeutic group singing as a treatment for Parkinson’s Disease. 

• Mengmeng Liu, Department of Communication Studies, “Navigating subversiveness: Digital Feminist Play and Resistant in Women-Centered Media Practices in China” 
  Liu’s dissertation intends to examine contemporary gender politics, feminist discourses, and digital dynamics in China. 

• Briante S. L. Najev, Department of Biology, “How do environmental stressors influence a snail with variable ploidy and reproductive modes?” 
  Najev’s dissertation investigates how nutritional limitation and population density influence the chromosomal makeup of the destructive, globally invasive New Zealand mud snail. 

• Caleb Pennington, Department of History, “Shades of Green: Historical Perceptions of the U.S. Environmental Movement” 
  Pennington’s research analyzes how early opponents of the U.S. environmental movement fostered negative stereotypes of environmentalists in order to dictate the public perception of conservation.