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Student Awards and Achievements

Submitted by Henry J Laufenberg on September 3, 2020 - 2:55pm
Nanya Jhingran
Nanya Jhingran, Mellon Collaborative Summer Fellow

Graduate:

BrittNEY FranteceEnglish department graduate students Nanya Jhingran and BrittNEY Frantece were awarded a Mellon Collaborative Summer Fellowship for Public Projects in the Humanities for their collaborative project, “Manifesting the Ecstatic: Spiritual Activism & Storytelling in Seattle Communities of Color.” Nanya and BrittNEY will be working with their faculty advisors, Habiba Ibrahim and Gillian Harkins.  The fellowship is part of the Simpson Center’s Reimagining the Humanities PhD and Reaching New Publics: Catalyzing Collaboration program, which advances new directions in public scholarship.

Congratulations to Rasheena Fountain (MFA, 2021) for her essay "A Difficult Trek with My Daughter," featured in Hobart Pulp. While Rasheena has published pieces in other publications, this is her first piece published in a literary journal.

Rasheena FountainGraduate students Joe Wilson and Rebecca Taylor have been awarded a Mellon Collaborative Fellowship for Reaching New Publics in Community Colleges as part of the Simpson Center for the Humanities’ Reimagining the Humanities PhD and Reaching New Publics: Catalyzing Collaboration. Candice Rai and Anis Bawarshi will participate as faculty mentors.

Gust Burns has received funding from the Simpson Center to organize a Graduate Research Cluster focused on “HAPTICS.”

Nanya Jhingran has received funding the Simpson Center to organize a Graduate Research Cluster focused on “Collective for the Study of Racial Capitalism.”

Laura GriffithLaura Griffith received funding the Simpson Center to organize a Graduate Research Cluster on “Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Studies.”

Recent graduate student E.J. Koh was interviewed by J.R. Ramakrishnan about her memoir, The Magical Language of Others.  It’s an excellent book, and Ramakrishnan’s article airs a powerful conversation:

“The stoning of my great-grandfather in the Jeju Island Massacre was visually and spatially translated using parentheses: (Road) (Father) (Road). The poetry is in the two words and how each word changes in its relationship with and proximity to each other—a sort of transubstantiation. There is a road. There is a father. The father becomes the road.”

In essays for the Simpson Center Reimagining the PhD blog, English Department graduate students Caitlin Postal and Kaelie Giffel write on accessibility in higher education. Postal argues for the need to legitimize public scholarship as an academic practice; Giffel writes about how storytelling builds community.  Both represent the English department as our 2019-20 Mellon Collaborative Fellows. Great work!

Recent graduate student Tait Bergstrom's dissertation "Uptake of Educational Texts in Multilingual Composition Classrooms" has been selected as a co-winner for the Heilman Dissertation Prize for 2018-2019.  Dr. Bergstrom has registered early career success too, having taken a post as Assistant Professor and Writing Center Direct at Yale-NUS College in Singapore, a collaboration of Yale and the National University of Singapore that “aims to redefine liberal arts and science education for a complex, interconnected world.”

The other co-winner of the Heilman Dissertation Prize for 2018-2019 is recent graduate student Denise Grollmus, whose dissertation is titled "The Sacred Disease: Narratives of Addiction and the Making of the Post-Secular Self." Dr. Grollmus worked as a full-time journalist for Village Voice Media and attended Penn State University, receiving her MFA in Creative Writing in 2012.  She came to the department for a PhD, earned a long list of awards and accolades, and, after working with the Simpson Center as their Communications Manager, recently accepted a full-time, tenure track faculty position in Communication Studies at South Seattle College.  Congratulations!

Current graduate student Alycia Gilbert's Master's essay "'Her Speech Betrayeth Her': The New Woman and Gendered Slang" has been selected for the Hallien Johnson Memorial Prize in Women and Literary Study for 2018-2019.

Current graduate student Joseph Wilson's article "Transfer and Transformation in Multilingual Student Writing" has been selected for the Hermione and Louis Brown Graduate Publication Prize for 2018-2019.

Francesca Colonnese and Rasheena Fountain were awarded the Richard Dunn First-year Teaching Award, with Joseph Wilson named as honorable mention.

Sumyat Thu was awarded the Joan Webber Award for Outstanding Teaching in the Writing Programs, with Sarah Ghasedi and Jessica Holmes named as honorable mention.

Jessica Holmes was awarded the Joan Webber 200-level Teaching Award.

Nolie RamseyGust Burns and Joe Concannon have been awarded the Allan and Mary Kollar Endowed Fellowship for the 2020-21 academic year.  This scholarship is designed to provide financial assistance to highly deserving full-time graduate students studying either American Art History or American literature.

Kathleen Reeves has been awarded an Elizabeth Kerr Macfarlane Endowed Scholarship for the 2020-21 academic year. The scholarship is designed to provide financial assistance to highly deserving students in the Humanities. 

Kathleen Reeves was also awarded the Donna Gerstenberger Fellowship.

Nolie Ramsey has been awarded the Míċeál F. Vaughan Scholarship for 2020-21.  This scholarship provides support for travel to primary research libraries and archives for projects involving European texts before 1600.

Shane Peterson, Jennifer Cuffman, and Amanda McCourt were awarded the Phyllis F. and Donald E. Dorset Dissertation Fellowship.

Joseph Concannon and T.J. Walker were awarded the Robert R. and Mary Waltz Dissertation Fellowship.

Sara Lovett and Yan Wang were awarded the Mildred Hainer Fellowship.

Daniel Roberts was awarded Padelford Recruitment Fellowships.

Thaomi Michelle Dinh was awarded a GO-MAP Dissertation Fellowship.

JohnMorgan Baker, Jianfeng He, Belle Kim, Brianna Martinez, Amanda McCourt, Daniel Roberts, and Rachel Schlotfeldt were awarded Hilen Summer 2020 Research Awards.

Ally AngMFA students Haines Whitacre and Amy Zimmerman are the 2020 recipients of the Nelson Bentley Prize.

Ally Ang is the 2020 recipient of the Grace Milliman Pollock Scholarship in Creative Writing.

McKenzie Murray has been awarded the Eugene Van Buren Prize for Fiction.

 

Undergraduate:

English Creative Writing student Jonathan Hong has won a Libraries Student Employee Scholarship of $1,000.  Nice work Jonathan!

Undergraduate Kaley Aldrich has been awarded the George and Barbara Akers Scholarship for the 2020-21 academic year.

Julia Kudler is the 2020 winner of the Edith K. Draham Scholarship as well as the John Kimball Woolley and Afton Woolley Crooks Scholarship.  Julia was also designated as an alternate for The “Group” of Humanities Scholarships” which include the Fritz, Hunter, Lederman, and Macfarlane awards.

Sophia Carey, Micah Lusignan, Christina Pan, Anna Payne, and Courtney Renaud have each been awarded a John Kimball Woolley and Afton Woolley Crooks Scholarship.

Micah Lusignan is the recipient of the Argentina Daley Endowed Fund.

Olivia Perrone is the 2020 winner of the Peter L. Thorpe Scholarship.

Max Wood is the 2020 winner of the Tia Vall-Spinosa Sullivan Endowed Scholarship.

Daniel O’Connell is the 2020 (and second time) winner of the Arthur Oberg Poetry Prize.

Scott Calahan is this year’s recipient of the Robert Heilman Award as well as the Edward Cox Scholarship.

Zoe Mertz is the recipient of Eilert Anderson scholarship and the Charlotte Paul Reese Prize.

Zoe Mikuta is the recipient of the Roger Sale scholarship.

Nikki Talebi is the recipient of the Luckie Budd Waller scholarship.

Alice Miller is the recipient of the Ashton Crooks scholarship.

Mickee Cheung and Tyler Wagner have been awarded the Grayston Prize.

Congratulations to all the fabulous English department students winning funding for their educations!  As people who value education and the humanities, English alumni are crucial supporters of our current students.  Given these times of lockdown, upheaval and transformation many of our students are experiencing financial hardship.  Your help is needed now more than ever.  We urge alumni to consider making a one time or, better, recurring contribution to support our young scholars.  Follow this link to browse our many options for making a difference.  From the bottoms of our hearts, thank you so much for your support!

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