Alice Belkin Memorial Scholarship Recipients

Alice Belkin Memorial Scholarship Program

The Burkle Center awards outstanding graduate students, who have financial need and research interests related to globalization and international relations with scholarships up to $4,000.00 each academic year. Scholarships are granted to qualified applicants who demonstrate leadership skills and academic achievement.

2023-24 Scholarship Recipients

Natalie Bryce

Natalie Bryce is a third-year Ph.D. student in the UCLA Department of Political Science. Her scholarship focuses on international law, human rights, political violence, and international organizations. Her dissertation explores how UN fact-finding missions influence the prevention and punishment of international crimes. Prior to the Ph.D., Natalie earned a Master of Public Administration from the Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California, and a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from Pepperdine University. Her professional background includes a decade of experience in nonprofit administration in the education, arts and social justice sectors. After completing her Ph.D., Natalie plans to continue conducting policy-relevant research and teaching students as a university professor.

Doeun Kim

Doeun Kim is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science and an MS student in the Statistics and Data Science Department at UCLA. Her research interests lie in interest groups' influence over foreign economic policies. In her dissertation, she explores how the social behaviors of foreign corporations affect public backlash against globalization in host countries. She received her MA in International Politics and BA in International Politics and International Cooperation Development Studies from Seoul National University. After completing her PhD, Doeun plans to continue researching and teaching as a university professor.

Cartland Zhou

Cartland Zhou is a Ph.D. candidate at the UCLA Political Science Department. Cartland is an international relations scholar passionate about understanding conflict dynamics through the lens of arms transfers. She is also a computational statistician driven to build novel tools to better examine complex international relations dynamics. Her dissertation is a book project examining mechanisms under which arms exporting states leverage arms transfers for geopolitical strategic gains and their implications for interstate disputes and conflicts. After graduation, Cartland plans to become a professor at an academic institution to continue her research work and help mold future minds in International Relations.

2022-23 Scholarship Recipients

Vincent Doehr

Vincent Doehr is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at UCLA. He is broadly interested in the colonial origins of international law and how this results in international law upholding settler interests in settler-colonial conflicts, with a geographic focus on Palestine and Namibia. He received his B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, where he became deeply interested in the history and practice of international law. Aside from his research, Vincent values his role as an educator and places an emphasis on inclusive and critical pedagogies. After completing his Ph.D., he hopes to continue researching and teaching as a university professor.

Jiyoung Kim 

Jiyoung Kim is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at UCLA. Broadly, she studies the political economy of development, political violence and identity politics in Sub-Saharan Africa. In her dissertation project, she investigates how climate change-induced migration increases conflict risks. After completing her Ph.D., Jiyoung plans to continue conducting policy-relevant research and teaching students as a university professor.

Sara Moya

Sara Moya is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Geography at UCLA. She completed her undergraduate at UCLA in 2019 where she majored in Global Studies. Her research interests are grounded in studying how globalizing processes of movement reproduce social inequalities and how these inequalities are experienced in both local and transnational settings. In Sara's Master's thesis, she is writing about how undocumented migrants sustain transnational relationships through their use of paqueterias (courier services) that allow them to send and receive goods from Mexico to the US and vice versa. For her Ph.D. thesis, she hopes to engage in a larger-scale project studying and highlighting the role of migrant communities in our globalized world through their labor and critical contribution in mobility studies. After grad school, Sara wants to teach and conduct research at an R1 institution and mentor first-generation college students.

2021-22 Scholarship Recipients

Catherine Crooke

Catherine Crooke (she/they) is a sociology Ph.D. student at UCLA and an advocate for refugees and asylum seekers. Catherine's research interests include the sociology of refugee law and the construction of refugeehood as a legal status, a political concept, and a social category. Catherine's current research uses ethnography to study asylum lawyering in Los Angeles, examining how immigration attorneys adapt their work to navigate exclusionary policies of migration control. After completing her dissertation, Catherine hopes to pursue an academic career teaching law and sociology. 

Kevin Gatter

Kevin Gatter is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at UCLA. Influenced by his boricua heritage, Kevin's research examines stateless nations and secessionist movements. He received his B.A. and M.A. in International Relations from American University in Washington, D.C. Before beginning his Ph.D. program at UCLA, Kevin worked in the fields of international development in Latin America and international education in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. After completing his Ph.D., Kevin plans to continue researching and teaching as a university professor. 

Monica Widmann

Monica Widmann is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Political Science department. Her research area is in Political Economy and Middle East politics. In particular, she studies economic reform, sovereign debt politics, and distributive politics. Her dissertation examines the development of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and its impact on the sovereign debt market and economic growth in developing countries post-crisis. After completing her PhD, Monica plans to continue researching and teaching as an assistant professor. 

NaaKoshie Mills

NaaKoshie Awurama Mills is a Ph.D. student at the UCLA Department of Anthropology, focusing on the intersection of geopolitics and the anthropology of race and Blackness. Her proposed project on African American Foreign Service Officers at the Department of State examines the impacts of race and identity in diplomacy and foreign policy. Formerly a U.S. Diplomat, NaaKoshie served at the Bureau of African Affairs, the U.S. Consulate in Johannesburg, South Africa and the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Prior, she worked at the U.S. Senate and also consulted for the French Development Agency and private non-profits in Nigeria and Colombia. NaaKoshie earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science at Howard University and later completed a dual Masters in International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York and Sciences Po in Paris, France. After completing her Ph.D., she plans to continue her career in academia as a professor and researcher in African studies and anthropology. 

2020-21 Scholarship Recipients

Madhavi Narayanan

Madhavi Narayanan is a J.D. candidate at UCLA School of Law with a passion for international human rights law. After working for two years with Teach for India in Chennai teaching 4th and 5th grade students, Madhavi came to law school to become an advocate for children affected by violence. She is specializing in International and Comparative Law and Critical Race Studies and has worked with various organizations in South Asia, East Africa, and the Middle East during her time in law school to support human rights fact-finding and advocacy. Madhavi is currently focused on researching the gaps in international human rights law's protection of special categories of children affected by violence, such as child soldiers. 

Alfredo Trejo III

Alfredo Trejo III is a Ph.D. student at the UCLA Department of Political Science. His research focuses on the politics of development in Latin America, with a focus on Central America. Alfredo’s current project examines the effects of non-political elites and massive demonstrations in the streets on free trade agreement negotiations and ratifications. His research interests began when he was a community college student at East Los Angeles College and was solidified through his B.A. in Political Science at UCLA and his M.S. in Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University. In addition to his research interests, Alfredo is committed in advancing access to higher education and increasing graduation rates of historically marginalized communities. Alfredo is a College Academic Mentor and has worked with UCLA’s Transfer Summer Program. After completing his Ph.D., Alfredo plans to continue his research and teach as a university professor.

Nallely Valenzuela

Nallely Valenzuela is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science who specializes in international political economy. Her research interests focus on individual policy preferences, including trade policy, monetary policy, and exchange-rate systems.  She also analyzes how different sectors in the economy react to fluctuations in currency values. Prior to graduate school, she interned at the Department of Public Social Services and Inland Empire Economic Partnership. Nallely is an American Political Science Association Diversity Fellow. Upon completing her Ph.D., she plans to become a professor. 

Mandie Nuanes

Mandie Nuanes is a Master’s student in the Latin American Studies program. Her current research focuses on U.S. enclaves in Latin America and the Caribbean during the early twentieth century. Her capstone project focuses on postcards and other visual materials as reluctant interlocutors to U.S. expansionism and tourism in the Panama Canal Zone and Haiti. After completing her program, she plans to apply for Ph.D. programs in History to continue researching and turn her current project into a dissertation.

2019-20 Scholarship Recipients

Estefania Castañeda Pérez 

Estefania Castañeda Pérez is a PhD candidate at the UCLA Department of Political Science. Her educational aspirations and research projects have been motivated by her experience commuting daily from Tijuana to San Diego for a borderless pursuit of education. Her dissertation examines the impacts of state violence at the U.S.-Mexico border on the lives of transborder commuters. Castañeda Pérez also advocates for human rights for immigrants and transborder commuters. She is a National Science Foundation Fellow and a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow. Currently, she participates in various initiatives supporting transborder youth and asylum seekers in the Tijuana-San Diego border region. As an aspiring border politics scholar and as a transborder student herself, Castañeda Pérez's main objective in graduate school is to conduct political science research on transborder commuters advancing social and political change at borders around the globe and guide underrepresented youth to bring change in their own communities. 

Carla Salazar Gonzalez

Carla Salazar Gonzalez is a PhD candidate in the UCLA Department of Sociology. Her research areas are immigration, asylum law, race/ethnicity, and inequality. Carla's dissertation examines how asylum-seeking women and their children from Central America, along with their attorneys and advocates, negotiate and are affected by the laws and immigration policies surrounding borders and asylum. Her research has been funded by the Fulbright Fellowship and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. She received a BA in Sociology and an MA in Sociology from UCLA. After completing her PhD, Carla plans to continue researching and teaching as a university professor. 

Ary Hansen

Ary Hansen is a J. D. candidate specializing in Public Interest Law and Policy, International and Comparative Law, and Critical Race Studies. Prior to law school, Ary worked as a paralegal with the Asylum Project at the National Immigrant Justice Center, as a research assistant at the Deportation Research Clinic, and as an intern with World Relief and the Center for Forced Migration Studies. Last summer, she interned with the National Immigration Law Center, where she supported litigation and advocacy work related to sanctuary, the public charge rule, and DACA. At UCLA Law, Ary is the Policy Director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, a Senior Editor of the UCLA Law Review, and an outgoing Community Outreach Co-Chair of the Asian Pacific Islander Law Student Association. She also serves on the Student Advisory Committee of the Promise Institute for Human Rights. She is currently researching the deportation of Southeast Asians who came to the United States as refugees. She received her bachelor's degree in Political Science from Northwestern University, with minors in International Studies and French. 

2018-19 Scholarship Recipients

Jenny Jong-Hwa Lee

Jenny Jong-Hwa Lee is a PhD student in Higher Education and Organization Change in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Her research interests focus on the intersections of migration and education, including international education, cross-border education, international students, and undocumented students. Her dissertation focuses on the student experience of South Koreans attending American international branch campuses located within South Korea. Her research interests have largely been shaped through her nine year residence in Korea where she worked as an English teacher and education administrator. Upon graduating, she will continue working in a higher education environment, whether through teaching and conducting research as a professor or through student affairs work to ensure that students are supported and succeeding in their own academic journeys.

Hannah Seulgee Jung

Hannah Seulgee Jung is a J.D. candidate specializing in International and Comparative Law as well as Public Interest Law and Policy. Prior to UCLA, she served as an Advocacy Fellow at Human Rights Watch in Geneva and New York and interned with the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative in Washington, D.C. Last summer, she completed her internship with DLA Piper’s European Pro Bono team in Paris, supporting human rights casework in migrants’ rights, children’s rights and the rule of law. On campus, Hannah is on the board of the International Human Rights Law Association as outgoing Second-Year Representative and incoming Director of Professional Engagement. She also served as Managing Editor for the Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs and will direct next year’s Symposium. Hannah is currently researching pro bono legal services in Germany, which she hopes to continue after graduation. An alumna of Dartmouth College where she studied Creative Writing and Sociology, she speaks Korean, Chinese and French.   

Qiaoyan Li Rosenberg

Qiaoyan Li Rosenberg is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology. She was born and primarily educated in China. After graduating from college in China, she studied in a master’s program in Japan where she examined Japan’s immigration policy. At UCLA, she is doing research on labor migration in East Asia - focusing on the causes and consequences of low-skilled laborers’ migration from China and South East Asian countries to Japan, and how their movement is facilitated and regulated by the migration industry actors and states. Her interests lie in understanding the reasons for the precarious conditions met by migrant workers, and the factors that lead to the heightened risk of human and labor rights violations. After her program, she intends to continue addressing the migration issues facing the East Asian and Southeast Asian regions with her research. She would also like to continue participating in activities organized by NPOs, NGOs and major activist networks that aim to extend immigrants’ rights and improve their living and working conditions.

2017-18 Scholarship Recipients

 Viva Iemanjá Harris

Viva Iemanjá Harris is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science who specializes in international relations and international law. She studies interstate cooperation, with emphasis on instances in which the failure of states to cooperate with each other results in violent conflict. She also studies interstate regulation of activity that spans national borders, with a focus on the challenges of enforcing environmental, human rights, and security treaties that apply to marine areas. She is a National Science Foundation Graduate Student Fellow, and plans to become a professor upon completion of her Ph.D.

Joel Herrera

Joel Herrera is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology specializing in development and political sociology. His research focuses on the political economy of violence in Latin American societies and the emergence of illegal markets with an emphasis on the Mexican drug trade. His dissertation project will examine the social history of drug production in twentieth century Mexico as molded by state power and changes in the country’s national economy. Following his graduate studies, Joel hopes to continue his academic career as a professor.

Andrea Vilán

Andrea Vilán is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science specializing in international relations. Her research interests lie at the intersection of domestic politics, human rights, and international organizations. Her dissertation examines how domestic interest groups affect the implementation of human rights treaties. Before coming to UCLA, she completed her graduate and undergraduate training at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella and Universidad de San Andrés in Argentina. After completing her Ph.D., Andrea plans to continue researching and teaching as a professor.

 

2016-17 Scholarship Recipients

Cristian González Cabrera

Cristian González Cabrera is a third-year student at UCLA School of Law School, enrolled in the International and Comparative Law Specialization and the Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. He is interested in international human rights, humanitarian, and criminal law and how lawyers can marshal these legal tools strategically to effect change for victims of heinous abuses in the United States and abroad. On campus, he is involved in OUTLaw, the International Human Rights Law Association, and the Journal for International Law and Foreign Affairs. During his time in law school, he completed internships at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Human Rights Watch. After graduating, he will serve as a Legal Fellow at the Center for Justice & Accountability where he will focus on human rights impact litigation and transitional justice. A former Fulbright fellow in Germany, he received his Bachelor's degree in History and French & Francophone Studies from Columbia University.

 

 Makaela Newsome

Makaela Newsome is a Master's student in the Master's in Public Health in Community Health Sciences and Master's of Art in African Studies concurrent degree program. Her current research focus is global maternal and child health particularly in East Africa. Her current Master's thesis is on Traditional Birth Attendants and their birth control practices in southwestern and central Uganda. After completing her program she plans to work with health related NGO's in East Africa.

Francesca Parente

Francesca Parente is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science specializing in International Relations and Methodology. Her research interests include international organizations, human rights, and international law. Her dissertation asks what makes international human rights courts effective and why states comply with their rulings, focusing on the Inter-American Commission and Inter-American Court of Human Rights. After completing her PhD, Francesca hopes to continue researching and teaching as a professor.

Alvin Teng

Alvin Teng is a Master of Public Policy candidate in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. His policy interests include culturally-relevant and data-driven international development and equitable criminal justice reform. Before starting at UCLA Luskin, he interned for a year in Bangalore, India with an international human rights NGO combating forced labor trafficking. While there, he grew convinced that violence is a key factor hindering gains in economic development, and that transformation of justice systems are crucial to alleviating poverty. In the future, he hopes to apply his skills to solving issues of inequality at the intersection of race and socioeconomic class, either domestically or globally.

2015-16 Scholarship Recipients

 

Jiaying Song

Jiaying Song began her doctoral study in Social Science and Comparative Education at UCLA 2012. Her research interests include educational exchange, internationalizing higher education, and internationalization of higher education in China and its relationship to its soft power. Her dissertation topic is China’s soft power strategy in American higher education. After graduation from UCLA, she hopes to pursue a career in foreign affairs, policy analysis, or serve as a practitioner in an educational center that aims to promote international understanding and cooperation.

Lina Chhun

Lina Chhun is a doctoral candidate and fifth year graduate student in the Department of Gender Studies. Her research focuses on questions of memory, mediation, narrative, and the production of history in the afterlife of violence, with an attunement to registers/ registerings of historical trauma relating to the Cambodian genocide of 1975-1979. Her dissertation project regarding narrative silences and the dialectics of memory-making regarding the U.S. bombing campaigns of 1964-1973 in Cambodia hopes to expand on developing subfields in American, Southeast Asian, and Asian American Studies.

 

Carley Fernandez

Carley Fernandez is a PhD student in the Political Science Department at UCLA specializing in international relations. Her major research interests include: international law, international institutions, national security, and foreign policy. Carley is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and is currently working on research on the role of international institutions (specifically the United Nations Security Council) and multilateral action in national security, defense, and foreign policy decision making. Upon completion of her PhD, Carley plans to continue her research and teach at a research university.

 

 2014-15 Scholarship Recipients

 

Albert Chang

Chi-Jiun Albert Chang is a PhD candidate in the Political Science Department at UCLA, specializing in political economy of developing countries. He has several major research interests: the continuing influence of historical institutions and political economy on present-day economic and political development; fundamental sources of economic growth; and the political factors that influence how countries are able to develop effective industrial policy. Upon completion of the PhD, Albert plans to continue teaching and doing research about economic development in Latin America and East Asia, at a research university.

 

Sigin Ojulu

Sigin Ojulu was born in Sudan (now South Sudan) and attended the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities for her undergraduate studies, where she studied global studies and economics. Sigin just completed her first year in the Master's program for African Studies within the UCLA International Institute and hopes to move immediately into a Ph.D program at Harvard University for African and African American studies. Her research interests include race in Africa, "middlemen minorities" and nation-state building.

  

Soumi Chatterjee

Soumi Chatterjee is a PhD student in UCLA's Department of Political Science. His developed his research focus on political and psychological factors in conflict creation and perpetuation through years studying and working abroad, master’s work in public diplomacy, and research conducted for the Brookings Institution. He hopes to become a professor and teach at a four-year university.

  

Teruko Mitsuhara

Teruko Mitsuhara is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Anthropology at UCLA, whose primary interests are in globalized Hindu religions, migration, and multilingualism in India. Her dissertation study will consider religiously motivated migration and multilingualism among immigrant children in Mayapur, West Bengal in India. After finishing her PhD, Teruko intend to maintain a career as a researcher who studies the intersections of global migrations, religion, and language change among diverse children in India.

  

2013-14 Scholarship Recipients 


Ali Hamdan 

Ali is from a small town in rural Massachusetts. He was born to an American mother and Lebanese father, who had left Lebanon to avoid the sectarian violence of the brutal civil war that engulfed the country in 1975. As a child traveling to Lebanon to visit relatives, he was captivated by both the violence that had torn apart this small country and the resilience people showed in the face of struggle. After years of academic soul-searching, it took an internship with an NGO based in Zahle, Lebanon to remind him that this was to define his career trajectory. In Zahle Ali worked on projects to help de-radicalize Lebanese youth in the Bekaa Valley, and during this project a lot of questions arose that pushed him to study sectarian conflict in Lebanon. His dissertation now focuses on the diffusion of sectarian violence from Syria into neighboring countries, specifically Jordan. Ali is pursuing a career in research on sectarian violence and state failure, in academia or in the context of private research foundations. He also anticipates seeking to participate in peace-keeping efforts through the United Nations.

Jasmine Phillips

Jasmine Phillips is a law student at UCLA School of Law (c/o 2015) in the David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy and the Critical Race Studies Specialization. Her research interests focus on the intersections of race, gender, and incarceration in a domestic and global context. She is spending summer 2014 in Cape Town, South Africa studying comparative constitutional law and advanced immigration law and interning with the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services. She will also be interning in New York with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). She aspires to be a civil and human rights attorney and a professor under the umbrella of international human rights and critical race theory.

 

Sandeep Prasanna

Sandeep Prasanna is pursuing a joint degree in law (J.D.) and public policy (M.P.P. in Global Public Affairs) at the School of Law and the Luskin School of Public Affairs. From 2013 to 2014, Sandeep served as Editor-in-Chief of Volume 18 of the UCLA Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs, and he directed the journal's symposium in the spring of 2013. He co-founded and is a current student co-director of the UCLA International Justice Project, which pairs law students with foreign human rights NGOs in need of research aid. In 2013, Sandeep was an Associate Editor of the ICC Forum, a joint project between the School of Law and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. In 2012 and 2013, he directed student trips to Tucson, Arizona, to provide legal research aid on U.S.-Mexico border issues.  While at UCLA, Sandeep has completed internships or projects in The Hague, Johannesburg, and eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sandeep intends to pursue a career in international human rights law, focusing in particular on legal institutions in conflict and post-conflict regions.

2012-13 Scholarship Recipients

 Irene I. Vega

Irene I. Vega is a doctoral student in Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests are in international migration, political sociology, and racial/ethnic boundaries. She is particularly interested in whether and how internal immigration politics impact the United States’ foreign policy toward immigrant-sending countries, especially Latin America. Upon completion of the Ph.D., Irene will pursue an academic job at a research university with a lively program on international relations, specifically as it relates to immigration and politics.

 Kristen Kao

Kristen Kao is a PhD Candidate in the Political Science Department at UCLA. She first traveled to the Middle East on a Fulbright grant to conduct research in Egypt in 2006. Since then, she has spent a good portion of each year living in the region, culminating in the dissertation fieldwork she is currently conducting in Jordan and Kuwait. Her research seeks to understand the effects of different types of electoral institutions on voting behavior and democratic representation in ethnically divided societies. She hopes to become a professor and teach at a four-year university.

 Siyu Cai

Siyu Cai was born in China, and he grew up in the U.S.'s most diverse zip code—Seattle's 98118 postal code. This upbringing has led him to pursue a Ph.D. in the Department of Geography at UCLA. His research interest is geographical political economy with a regional focus on China. He has done research on China's regional development, household registration system, and internal migration. Upon graduation, Siyu plans to apply his research agenda, as well as his interest in teaching, in an academic institution.

2011-12 Scholarship Recipients

 Aaron Alejandro Olivas

Aaron Alejandro Olivas is a doctoral candidate in the UCLA Department of History. His research interests include the history of colonial Latin America and the Spanish empire (1492-1808), particularly relations between Spanish America and early modern France. Aaron is a member of the Centro de Estudios Coloniales Iberoamericanos de UCLA (CECI) and has also worked as a research assistant at the Getty Research Institute. His career goal is to become a professor of World History and teach at the college level.

Almas Sayeed

Almas Sayeed is a law school student, Class of 2012 and is enrolled in the law school's David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy Program, a selective program for law school students focused on public interest work. She was a 2003 Fulbright Fellow at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where she earned her MA in International Studies and worked for the Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling and the European Commission for Cooperation and Development. Following this, she earned her MSc in Economic Development from the London School of Economics.

Cynthia Ugwuibe

Cynthia Ugwuibe is a second year student in the Master of Arts in African Studies program UCLA. Prior to starting her master’s degree, she pursued an internship with TransAfrica Forum, a policy advocacy organization in Washington D.C., where she followed legislative and media developments on the political situation in Zimbabwe. At UCLA, Cynthia research focuses on oil revenue management, in particular sovereign wealth fund (SWF) management in Nigeria. Last summer, she participated in the Yoruba Fulbright-Hays intensive language program in Ife, Nigeria where she studied the Yoruba language, a language widely spoken in Nigeria. Also, while in Nigeria, Cynthia interned with the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), a prominent public policy organization in Abuja.

2010-11 Scholarship Recipients

 Farnoosh Hashemian

Farnoosh is a third-year student in the Public Interest Law and Policy Program at the UCLA School of Law. Prior to starting her legal education, she was a research associate at Physicians for Human Rights, where she led investigations on the consequences of human rights abuses at US detention facilities in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantánamo Bay. Farnoosh received her Master of Public Health from Yale University in 2005 and was awarded the Deans Award for Outstanding MPH Thesis.

Stephanie Santos

Stephanie is a PhD candidate at the UCLA Department of Women’s Studies. She grew up in the Philippines, where she worked as a journalist and a researcher with various NGOs. Her dissertation examines contemporary (post-1995) discourses of governmentality and development in the Philippines, focusing on how the state crafts restrictive forms of neoliberal economic citizenship that co-opt indigenous Filipinas into the flows of global capital.

2009-10 Scholarship Recipients

Michael Iyanaga

Michael Iyanaga is a PhD Candidate in the UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology. His research interests include historical ethnomusicology, popular religions, and ritual music in general with an emphasis on popular Catholic and African-derived religious musical rituals in Brazil. After completing his PhD, he plans on continuing his research, as well as teaching at the university level.

Natasha Rivers

Natasha is a PhD Candidate in the UCLA Department of Geography. Her research focus is international migration, internal migration, gender, African diaspora, sub-Saharan Africa, black identities and human capital. She will begin her post doctoral fellowship at the Minnesota Population Center in fall 2010.

Lisa Mueller

Lisa is a PhD Candidate in the UCLA Department of Political Science, specializing in African politics and social movements. Her dissertation, “Political Entrepreneurs and Urban Protest,” explores the determinants of collective action at the intersection of popular grievances and political entrepreneurs’ mobilization strategies. Her field work focuses on the pro-democracy and labor movements in Guinea, Mali, and Niger. After completing her PhD, Lisa hopes to pursue a career in teaching and research.

 

2008-09 Scholarship Recipients

Kim Yi Dionne

Kim is a PhD candidate at the UCLA Department of Political Science. She will complete her work as a Fulbright Scholar in Malawi and return to UCLA to finish her dissertation. Kim hopes to teach at a research university after graduating.

Summer Hamide

Summer is a JD/MPH candidate at the UCLA School of Law & UCLA School of Public Health. After graduation, she will go on to work for the US State Department, the UN or another international relief organization.

Tom Narins

Tom is a PhD candidate at the UCLA Department of Political Geography. After graduation he hopes to become a professor of political geography. His current research focus is Chinese–Latin American relations.

Amber Nicole Keyes

Amber is an MA candidate at the UCLA Department of International Departmental Studies, in the African Studies Program. She hopes to work in international development aid, policy and implementation, and international trade.