This year was the thirtieth anniversary of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Scholarship Program (MMUF) at Bowdoin. The research program, which supports promising young researchers in humanities and social scienceswas launched on campus in 1992 with funding from Mellon Foundation to Increase Diversity in Academia.
This summer, with Smith and Bowdoin students in person and Witwatersrand students joining online, the fifteen fellows each produced an “extraordinary project” in the fields of anthropology, dance, English, government, history and more, according to director Elizabeth Muther .
“MMUF students are so brilliant and supportive of each other—and adept at bringing ideas into focus and presenting them powerfully. Their research projects this summer were absolutely phenomenal,” she said.
The staff—two instructors and two program assistants—were all former Bowdoin Mellon Mays fellows. Speaking of the instructors and assistants collectively—including past instructors like Golden Owens ’15 and Kris Klein Hernandez ’12—Muther described the group as “a little over the top. They’re such an inspiration to our students.”
“Bowdoin is honored to be part of the extraordinary MMUF network of schools that has produced more than 1,000 doctorates since the Mellon Foundation began the program in 1988,” Muther said.
Several of this year’s student participants said it was exciting to be surrounded by intellectually enthusiastic and committed peers. “It was nice to live with a group of people who are passionate about many things,” said Ahmad Abdulwadood ’24. Their work was imaginative and original.”
Marcus Gadsden ’24 also commented on the strength of the friendships he made. “Being in the group was the best part,” he said, adding that he also enjoyed pursuing intensive research in a beautiful and peaceful place – Brunswick in the summer.
When asked what their favorite aspect of summer was, Kami Atcitty ’24 and Liat Tesfazgi ’24 answered, “the people” and “the cohort.”
“I’m glad that we managed to do this as a team”, continued Tesfazgi. “It’s fulfilling to do academic work on a topic I’m interested in,” she added with a “goofy body” smile. She then said, “A queer body that looks like you and has a similar college experience as you. I appreciate that.”
Student projects
Students presented their research proposals in a colloquium at the end of the five-week program.
We Atcitty ’24, Bowdoin: “Recovering Dinner Dance Narratives and Perspectives Through a Reframed Anthropological Lens”
Dylan Richmond ’24, Bowdoin: “breaking, expressing and creating language: the e/motion/al magic of Ntozake Shange’s choreography”
Karla Lainez ’24, Bowdoin: “Fighting Gender-Based Violence: Performance, Visual Art, and Oral History as Activism in Latin America”
Liat Tesfazgi ’24, Bowdoin: “The Intertwining of Ethiopian Nationalism and Historiography (1935-1991)”
Marcus Gadsden ’24, Bowdoin: “Justice or Death: Racial Bias Inside the Death Penalty”
Ahmad Abdulwadood ’24, Bowdoin: “Mediating Radical Politics with the Constitution: Organizing Community Resistance”
Penelope Phan, Smith: “Effects of Postwar Memory on the Mental Health of Queer Vietnamese Americans.”
Tracy Okai, Smith: “The sense of belonging for East African students in 21st century Norway”
No fun, Smith: “Blackness a Boundless Medium: A Sociohistorical Questioning of Blackness in the Museum and Its Relation to Notions of the ‘Body'”
Salma Vargas, Smith: “The Politics of Subjectivity: Melancholy versus Mourning in Neo-Slavic Narratives”
Senkhu Mufamadi, Witwatersrand: “Social and Cultural Meanings of Gallbladder Cancer in Mindalore, Krugersdorp”
Maxine Bird, Witwatersrand: “What Now? An Analysis of Post-Industrialism in Springs, Johannesburg”
Xuma Mabunda, Witwatersrand: “The Socio-Cultural Consequences of Migration in Southern and Eastern Africa”
Ziyad Moola, Witwatersrand: “Hypocrisy: A Closer Look at US Foreign Policy”
Edit Dyasi, Witwatersrand: “Queering Apartheid: An Intersectional Critique of War”
Where are they now? Updates on some recent Bowdoin Mellon students (including two current students):
George Aumoithe ’11, Harvard University: Assistant Professor of History and African and African American Studies
Kris Klein Hernandez ’12, Connecticut College: Assistant Professor of History
Teona Williams ’12, Rutgers University: Assistant Professor of Black Geographies
Isaiah Bolden ’15, Georgia Tech: Assistant Professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Golden Owens ’15: 2022 Ford Foundation Fellow and PhD candidate at Northwestern University
Adaiah Hudgins-Lopez ’18, University of Cambridge: Gates Scholar, entering a doctoral program in social anthropology
Elijah Koblan-Huberson ’20, University of Virginia: Admission to a doctoral program in French
Ellen Gyasi ’20, Teachers College, Columbia University: entry into an MA program in anthropology and education
Colby Santana ’23, Kyrgyzstan: US State Department Critical Language Scholarship (to study Russian)
Shandiin Largo ’23, Tbilisi, Georgia: SRAS Program (to study Russian)
Read about more Bowdoin Mellon Mays alumni.
