Scholarship & Social Justice Undergraduate Research Conference
Catherine Burkhart
American Studies major, Catherine (Catie) Burkhart, presented her thesis research, The Algebra Project: Empowerment through Math Education, at the Scholarship & Social Justice Undergraduate Research Conference at Harvard University on April 9, 2021. Catie's thesis examines the "school to organizing pipeline" facilitated by the curriculum of the Algebra Project, a program initiated in Cambridge Massachusetts in 1982 by Civil Right's leader, Bob Moses. Catie's research explores the interconnections between young people's Algebra Project experience and their organizing for educational reform in Jackson Mississippi and Baltimore Maryland.
American Studies Majors Selected as Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellows
2022 Cohort
Emma Cape
Major: English and American Studies; concentration in Native American Studies
Hometown: Great Bend, KS
Advisor & Department: Lisa Brooks, American Studies
Research Interest: Indigenous communal storytelling as a life-saving mechanism among Native youth.
Fun fact: I’m a New Year’s baby!
Sage Innerarity
Major: American Studies, Five College Certificate in Indigenous and Native American Studies
Hometown: Elk Grove, CA
Advisor & Department: Lisa Brooks, English
Research Interest: The connections between storytelling, language, and place, focusing on the question of how Indigenous authors write and (re)write their creation stories and oral histories.
Fun fact: I was the 2018 California Poetry Out Loud Runner-Up.
Alexis Scalese
Major: American Studies, Five College Certificate in Native and Indigenous Studies
Hometown: Albuquerque, NM
Advisor & Department: Kiara Vigil, American Studies
Research Interest: How kinship teachings in Indigenous Corn Mother Stories challenge the myth of Native DNA.
Fun fact: I have sound to color synesthesia
Jiajia Zhang
Major: American Studies and Practice of Art, Certificates in Asian/Pacific/American Studies and Norwegian Language
Hometown: Belmont, MA
Advisor & Department: Franklin S. Odo, American Studies
Research Interest: Using postcolonial and Asian American critical race analyses to understand historical and persistent patterns of racism against the Chinese diaspora in the USA, Britain, and Norway.
Fun fact: I used to be a social media manager for a Belarusian rock band called Litesound!
American Studies Majors Fulbright Grants
