GIAS is proud to announce that the following students have been selected to receive research funding as part of our AY 2026-27 grant cycle.
The John L. Simpson ABD Research Fellowship in International & Area Studies
Thomas Abers Lourenço (Political Science)
"Economies of Punishment: Private Orders and the Regulation of Justice in Brazil"
Zain Alattar (Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures)
The Synthesis of Sufism, Philosophy, and Shiism in 13th/14th century Bahrain
Daisy Ament (Italian Studies)
"Romans in Ruins: Unification and the Archaeological Imagination in Rome's Underbelly"
Gaurav Banerjee (South & Southeast Asian Studies)
"Intimate Networks: Homosociality and Masculinity in the Imperial Mughal World (c. 1556-1748)"
Lauren Bartone (Italian Studies)
"Transplants: Sicilian Labor and the Making of a National Italian Landscape"
Emma Bates (History)
"Energy and Empire in the Corporate Petrostate: Alaska, 1902-2022"
Adrián Bermúdez Pérez (History)
"Livable Worlds: Ecologies of Marronage in the Nineteenth Century Caribbean"
Gray Brakke (City & Regional Planning)
"Making Postsocialist Property: Self-Building, Markets, and Land Use Rights in Hanoi"
Gabrielle Canning (South & Southeast Asian Studies)
"In the Form of Another: The United States, Britain, and the Minstrel Show, 1846-1930"
William Carter (Geography)
"The Slave Ship: A Trojan Horse at the Gates of Modernity"
Ziwei Chen (Film & Media)
"Seeing by Design: Light, Perception, and Governance in China"
Shira Cohen (Political Science)
"Costly Religious Signals: The Overlooked Determinant of Coercive Credibility"
Nardos Darkera (Public Health)
"Refuge Within: Mental Well-Being and Resilience Among African Refugee Young Women"
Sakina Dhorajiwala (Political Science)
"Navigating the State: Citizens' Experience of Claim Making in India"
Leonardo Di Bonaventura-Altuve (Political Science)
"Defiance to International Hierarchies: Why Do States Exit Authoritative Relations?"
Dimitri Diagne (History)
"Discursive Fields: The French Imperial Politics of Agriculture in the Senegal River Delta, 1860-1970"
Nathaniel Dolton-Thornton (Energy & Resources Group)
"Critical Mineral Futures: The Political Economy of Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling in China and the United States"
Rahel Fischer (Law)
"The Legal and Forensic Performance of Truth(s): An Investigation Into Rhetorical and Legal Techniques in Cases of Disappearances and Collective Expulsions at Europe's External Borders"
Jonathan Garza (History)
"The Camphor Archipelago: The Environmental Origins of Japanese Settler Colonialism in the Pacific"
Joseph Greenbaum (Political Science)
"Toxic Trades: Waste Markets and States in East Africa"
Vardan Gupta (South & Southeast Asian Studies)
"Reimagining Vārāṇasī: Kingship, Patronage and Literary Traditions c. 10th to 14th Centuries C.E."
Oakley Haight (Rhetoric)
Madolyn Hyytiainen-Jacobson (Ancient Greek & Roman Studies)
"In Death We Don’t Part: A Bioarchaeological Analysis from the Late Bronze Age Cemetery at Aidonia"
Miranda Jiang (History)
"Nguyễn An Ninh, Celebrity Prisoner: The Origins of Modern Politics in Vietnam (c. 1890-1990)"
Xixi Jiang (City & Regional Planning)
"Infrastructure-Building as World-Building: Technopolitics in China’s Electricity Regime"
Joanna Korey (History)
"India, The Question of Palestine, and the Age of Decolonization, 1919-1980"
Jiayu Lai (Political Science)
"When Industrial Transfers Reshape Institutions: Evidence from Vietnam’s Labor Standards after the U.S.–China Trade War"
Dinah Lawan (Political Science)
"Micro-Level Non-Military Mechanisms of Community Self-Defense: Evidence from Northern Nigeria"
Michelle Layvant (Agricultural & Resource Economics)
"School Fees and Underinvestment in Human Capital"
Britt Leake (Political Science)
"Strategic Ambiguity: Lessons on Multicultural Democracy from Canada, India, Lebanon, and Spain"
Xiying Lin (History)
"Revolution Through Other Eyes: Village Interpretations of Communist Power in Western Fujian, 1929-1934"
Yue Lin (Political Science)
"Championing Economic National Security in a De-Globalized Era"
Lydia Mathews (History)
"Conceiving the American Plan: Prostitution, Race, and Migration in the North American Western Borderlands, 1900-1930"
Chi Kwan Vivian Ngan (History)
"Stewards of the Subsoil: Elites, Extraction, and Environmental Governance in the Nanling Borderlands, 1885–1960"
Jiaqian Ni (Political Science)
"From Olive Branch to Enduring Peace: Domestic Politics and International Reconciliation"
Soren Nyhus (Music)
"Musical Enchantment and the Politics of Presence in the German Jugendmusikbewegung, 1917-1933"
Jenny Pham (History)
"Women in Wartime: Sex, State, and Society during the Vietnam War"
Daniel Quiroga-Ángel (Political Science)
"Choosing Restraint: Liberal Institution-Building in the Wake of Authoritarian Rule and Civil War"
Emily Reich (Education)
"Coerce and Construct: Israel's Five-Year Plans for East Jerusalem and the Politics of Replacing the Palestinian Curriculum"
Ajung Ryoo (Anthropology)
"Womb Imaginaries: Silicon Valley’s Reproductive Frontierism and Life Re/Produced in Excess"
Solihin Samsuri (South & Southeast Asian Studies)
"Between Adab and Amuk: Literary Affect in the Malay World"
Jacyln Schess (Public Health)
"Reducing the Harm of Alcohol Use Disorders among Low-Wage Workers: Experimental Evidence from India"
Deibi Sibrian (Environmental Science, Policy, & Management)
"Digital Transformations, Physical Costs, and Environmental Justice in El Salvador"
Sara Sohail (South & Southeast Asian Studies)
"Women of the Mughal Empire: Harem, Households, and the Public Sphere (1707-1788)"
Shrabya Timsina (Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning)
"Himalayan Landscape Craft and Spectacle in Lower Dolpa"
Revanth Ukkalam (South & Southeast Asian Studies)
"More than History: Time and the Past in Bṛhatkathā tradition"
Ooha Uppalapati (City & Regional Planning)
"Smallholding 'Partners' in Large-Scale Greenfield Urbanization in Rural India: the Making of New Subjects of State-Led Development"
Jordan Weitzel (Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures)
"Water Use at an Iron Age Capital in a Semi-Arid Zone: Investigating the Meaning of Water Installations and a Unique Ceramic Assemblage from Busayra, Jordan"
Antony Wood (History)
"Maghreb Noir? Blackness and Anticolonial Resistance in the Former French Maghreb, 1945–1969"
Mo'e Yaisikana (Social Welfare)
"Aging in Democracy: A Cross-National Comparative Study of Democratic Politics and Long-Term Care Systems"
Zhehang Zhang (Sociology)
"Bordering Development: Experimental Governance and China’s Extraterritorial Governmentality in Southeast Asia"
Keren Zou (History)
"Migrants’ Passports: Transpacific Governance of Chinese Migration in the Nineteenth Century"
The John L. Simpson Pre-Dissertation Research Fellowship in International & Area Studies
Ezana Anley (Law)
"Displacement, Compensation, and Law: Ethiopia's Corridor Development Project"
Subhobroto Banerjee (South & Southeast Asian Studies)
"Local Violence in the Mughal Empire: Bandits, Networks, and the State"
Ilia Budraitskis (Sociology)
"The Transformation of the Russian Political Regime (2000–Present) in the Context of the Global Authoritarian Turn"
Francisco del Rosario (History of Art)
"Image, Art, and Artifact in the Spanish Philippines"
Sasha Desberg (Music)
"The Endless Archipelago: Capitalism and Environmental Thought in the Japanese Empire"
Farai Divan Patel (Environmental Science, Policy, & Management)
"Reviving the Rahui: Community Governance, Collaboration, and Coral Reef Resilience in French Polynesia"
Hasmik Djoulakian (Environmental Science, Policy, & Management)
Valeska Fresquet Kohan (Haas School of Business)
"Housing Interventions in Latin America: Does Shelter Lead to Safety?"
Meher Gandhi (South & Southeast Asian Studies)
"Skin-deep modernity”: A study of Hindi Nayi Kahani Authors as Deleuzian Writer-Physicians"
Anthony Ghaly (Law)
"Biological Genocide: Law, Legitimacy, and the Logic of Authoritarian Violence"
Emma Goh (City & Regional Planning)
"A Region Reconstituted: Techno-Regionalism in the Singapore-Johor-Batam Growth Triangle"
Pumho Karimi (Comparative Literature)
"Tracing Postcolonial Legacies of Art and Media in Nairobi, Kenya"
Jia Yi Lim (History)
"Evading Prosecution: A Microhistory of the Seletar War Crimes Trials"
Gregório Luz (City & Regional Planning)
"Which Justice for Which Trip? Fairness Preferences among Brazilian Transport Policymakers"
Allie Mangel (Music)
"Sound Recording and Nature Conservation in Germany"
Allegra Molkenthin (History)
"Tides of Contagion: Epidemic Governance in the British Imperial Littoral"
Varun Pais (City & Regional Planning)
"Democratic Displacement, Parastatal Authoritarianism, and the Question of Democracy in Indian Cities"
Kyoungsoo Park (Medical Anthropology)
"Still Lives Ongoing: Remnants, Futurity, and the Politics of Entanglement"
Meikko Pritchard (Folklore)
"The Cost of Paris: Transmission and Backlash of a Black Utopian Imaginary"
Avery Reuter Lorenzana (History)
"Italian Anarchism and State Building in the Atlantic World, 1870-1920"
Sana Tariq (Political Science)
"Persuasion and Pragmatism: Armed Groups and Women, Peace and Security"
Georgia Thoms (Ancient History & Mediterranean Archaeology)
"Finding the Self Through Figural Funerary Manifestations: the Haniwa and Tou of Ancient Japan and Korea"
Ethan Tokko (History)
"Contested Compatriots: Imagining Race and Diaspora in Democratizing South Korea"
Vincent Tran (History)
"Building South Vietnam: Labor, Economic, and Environmental Transformations in Wartime Construction"
Samarth Vachhrajani (Architecture)
"The Spatial Epistemologies of Exchange: Stock Exchanges, Banking Networks, and the Making of Colonial World Market"
Tanmai Vemulapalli (Ethnic Studies)
"Genealogies of the Artisanal in Mountainous South Asia"