Congratulations to Alexandra Gessesse who was awarded a 2026 UC President’s Pre-Professoriate Fellowship! As part of the UC Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) Doctoral Diversity Initiative, it aims to enhance faculty diversity and pathways to the professoriate for students from California Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) in all disciplines. This competitive fellowship is designed to facilitate the academic career development of students who show potential to become excellent faculty or researchers in institutions of higher education as well as to advance equity and inclusion in graduate education at the University of California. The intent of the program is to provide fellowships for students to explore, prepare for and pursue faculty careers at UC or other institutions. Fellows receive a $39,000 stipend and California resident tuition and fees as well as a $10,000 professional development grant. Alexandra will use the fellowship to work on her dissertation, which examines how Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants in historically Black corridors in Oakland and Los Angeles navigate new forms of belonging through the lenses of place, politics, and popular culture.
We are happy to announce that Roderick Jackson who has been awarded a 2026 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship! Generously supported by the Mellon Foundation and administered by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the program supports doctoral students in the humanities and social sciences as they pursue innovative approaches to dissertation research, including new methodologies, formats, and collaborations with community partners beyond the academy. Rod is one of 50 graduate students selected from a pool of over 1,000 applicants through a rigorous, multi-stage peer review process that drew on the expertise of more than 170 scholars across the country. Each fellow receives an award of up to $52,000, consisting of a $42,000 stipend; up to $8,000 for project-related research, training, professional development, and travel; and a $2,000 stipend to support external mentorship that offers new perspectives on the fellow’s project and expands their advising network. With this fellowship, Rod will work on his dissertation project titled Making Life Livable: Black Masculinity, Labor, and Communities of Care in the Calumet Region.
Congrats are also in order to Chantel McCrea who is the recipient of the 2026-2027 Mentored Research Award! This competitive award is part of the Graduate Division’s commitment to recognizing and rewarding graduate students’ contributions to a diverse educational environment during their graduate careers and beyond. The purpose of the fellowship award is to assist doctoral students in acquiring sophisticated research skills by working under faculty mentorship on their own pre-dissertation research. Chantel will be mentored by Professor Tianna Paschel to carry out research that examines forms of love, care, intimacy, and sociality among Black queer sex workers and kink practitioners. The award will provide a stipend of $32,000 plus payment of in-state tuition and fees for the upcoming year and a $7,000 summer stipend.
Congratulations to Zana Sanders, who will assume the summer 2026 SFMOMA Gordon Parks Internship! The internship is a prestigious one that supports the professional development of undergraduate and graduate students working across the arts and humanities by providing training across multiple departments in the museum. Zana will work in the Photography Department and will be conducting curatorial research for the upcoming Gordon Parks exhibit and working alongside Dr. Delphine Sims.