The Center annually assists undergraduates by funding important parts of their junior or senior independent research.  In addition to receiving research funding these students are invited to present their research at a luncheon with Center staff and fellows. Undergraduate fellows also become regular participants in the various seminars and lecture series hosted at the Center.

Applications for new Undergraduate Research Fellows are taken at various times annually. Visit our Funding page to learn more.

2020-2021

Ethan Kahn
Near Eastern Studies, “Reparations for Iraqi Jews Displaced in the Mid-Twentieth Century”
Grace Logan
Anthropology, “New Age Spiritualism on YouTube: Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic from an Online Community”

Past Fellows

2019-2020 Fellows

Talia Anisfeld ’20, Anthropology, “Ethiopian Jewish Diaspora”

Emma Coley ’20, Religion, “Who is My Neighbor? Tent Cities in the United States”

Yousef Elzalabany ’20, Near Eastern Studies, “Religious-Cultural Responses to the Six-Day War in the Arab World”

Richard Furchtgott ’20French and Italian, “The Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Today’s Reconstruction through the Lens of Early 19th Century Renovations”

Nathaniel Gadiano ’20, French and Italian, “Female Saints in the Middle Ages”

Manuel Gomez Castaño ’20, Politics, “Defining Political Success: Miraism® and a Systematic Defense of Virtue and Religion in Politics”

Matthew Igoe ’20, Religion, “The Mystical Theology of Saint Teresa of Avila”

Rafi Lehman ’20, History, “The Jerusalem of Lithuania: Space and Place in Jewish Vilna, 1922-1955”

Emily McLean ’20, Religion, “Native and Mormon Religious Practices Informing Land Politics“

Elyana Schaer ’20, Sociology, “How do Young Adults Revise and Rely on their Spiritual and Religious Identity when They Attend a Secular Institution of Higher Education?”

Amelia Stucke ’20, History, “Religious Leaders in Modern America and Their Use of Miracles”

Betsy Vasquez ’20, Neuroscience, “Afro-Diasporic Religions as forms of psychotherapy among Afro-diasporic communities: Santeria in La Habana” (declined)

2018-2019 Fellows

Zartosht Ahlers ’19, Politics, “Implications of the Proposed US-Mexican Border Wall on the Tohono O’odham Nation”

Andie Ayala ’19, Anthropology, “The Social, Spiritual and Therapeutic Implications of the Sharing Life Stories”

Mariachiara Ficarelli ’19, Anthropology, “Religious space and inter-generational identity formation in the Eritrean diaspora in Italy”

Nouran Ibrahim ’19, Politics, “Female Genital Mutilation”

Yael Lilienthal ’19, “The Linguistic and Theological Influences on Aramaic Translations of the Bible”

Emily Kunkel ’19, Anthropology, “Examining French sentiment towards Arab immigrants through food culture”

Jack Lohmann ’19, English, “Congolese Refugees”

Emily McLean ’20, Religion, “Attending Homeschool/Christian Parenting Convention”

Nathaniel Moses ’19, History, “Edward Pococke and his Judeo-Arabic Manuscripts”

Jamie O’Leary ’19, Anthropology, “Mary, Motherhood, and Masculinity in Dene, Senegal”

Natalya Rahman ’19, Politics, “The Emergence of a Populist Party in Pakistan”

Nora Schultz ’19, Politics, “Theory and Practice of Radical Left in Uruguay and Chile”

Emmanuel Udotong ’19, Sociology, “Protestantism and Poverty in Nigeria”

Téa Wimer ’19, Religion, “Family Formation & Community Organizing For Queer Religious Individuals”

2017-2018 Fellows

Rachel Adler ’18, History, “Greek Pedagogy and Byzantine Academic Network in Quattrocento Italy”

Carolyn Beard ’18, Comparative Literature, “Edith Stein: Woman, Writer, Martyr”

Elly Brown ’18, Politics, “Eros, Sin, and Alienation: Political Desire for Immortality from Plato to Marx”

James Haynes ’18, Classics, “Christianity in Ancient Rome and Modern China”

Jonathan Lebeau ’18, History, “Christian Zionism”

Sang Lee ’18, German, “The “Strain” of Jewish Identity in Celan’s Jerusalem Poems”

Jack Lohmann ’18, English, “Congolese Refugees”

Noah Mayerson ’18, History, “Missionary Ideologies in Colonial South Africa and India”

Marissa Rosenberg-Carlson ’18, Near Eastern Studies, “Palestinian Diaspora in Santiago, Chile”

Jenny Silver ’18, Religion, “Religious Rhetoric of Indonesian Migrant Domestic Worker Regulation”

Jahdziah St. Julien ’18, History, “Reconciling two identities: Being a Black Man and a Catholic Priest during the late 1960s”

2016-2017 Fellows

Nusrat Ahmed ’17, Anthropology, “The Role of Music and Voice in Sufi Mystical Experience and Spiritual Practice”

Luisa Banchoff ’17, Religion, “Sacred Space and the Urban Setting in Contemporary Berlin: The Case of St. Jakob von Surag Syrian Orthodox Church”

Alice Catanzaro ’17, Near Eastern Studies, “The Effects of the Internet on Islamic Scholarly Authority in Morocco”

Arlene Gamio ’18, History, “Exploring AfroCuban Nationalism and Oral-Text Transition through a Santero Reading of Negrista Poetry, 1925-1970”

Ararat Gocmen ’17, History, “The Age of Extremes in Colonial Context: The Far Right and Far Left in the French Department of Alger, 1933-1945”

Solveig Gold ’17, Classics, “Deus ex Machina: Christ and Theatricality in the Philosophy of Late Antiquity”

Jacqueline Gufford ’17, Art and Archaeology, “An Exploration of the Franciscan Monastic Retreat at Verna in Print and Reality”

James Haynes ’18, Classics, “Augustine and Persecution of the Early Christian Church”

Becca Keener ’17, Religion, “Israeli Arabs and Minority Rights”

Zeena Mubarak ’17, Near Eastern Studies, “The Voice of Twentieth Century Sudanese Women as Discovered through Folklore”

Sophie Nguyen ’17, French and Italian, “Pied-noir Identity in Contemporary France”

Erin Nolder ’17, Sociology, “The Catholic Church in the Irish School System”

Melissa Parnagian ’17, Woodrow Wilson School, “The Influence of Insulting Identity-based Campaign Rhetoric on Political Engagement”

Jose Perez-Benzo ’17, History, “The Secret Renaissance: Augustine and the Humanists”

Zahava Presser ’17, English, “Tradition in Jewish American Children’s Books”

Yossi Quint ’17, Religion, “The Development of Communal Prayer and Prayer Spaces in Judaism”

Maya Rosen ’17, “Late Medieval and Early Modern Christian Grammars of Hebrew”

Christian Say ’17, Philosophy, “The Contextual Value of Art”

Chandler Sterling ’17, History, “English Positivism and Evangelical Thought in 19th Century Britain”

Safa Syed ’17, History, “Early Modern England and the Ottoman Empire: Diplomacy’s Affect on Culture”

Ayelet Wenger ’17, Classics, “Greek and Latin Load Words in the Arukh”

2015-2016 Fellows

Alex Cuadrado ’16, French and Italian, “Medieval Pilgrimage Accounts and their Influence on Italian Literature”

Lauren Frost ’16, Art and Architecture, “The Viewer Experience in the Meteora Monasteries”

Ryan Gedrich ’16, Anthropology, “Policing the Performed Identity: The transformative power of the social as embodied in Druid’s Irish theatre cycles”

Andrew Hanna ’16, Near Eastern Studies, “Arab Nationalism and Moroccan Amazigh Identity”

Isabel Henderson ’16, History, “Fox hunting and the Irish Revolution”

Sarah Jacobs ’16, Near Eastern Studies, “Recruitment of Tunisian Fighters by the Islamic State”

Kate Kaneko ’16, Woodrow Wilson School, “Abortion policy in Northern Ireland and its implications across party lines”

Stephanie Leotsakos ’16, Music, “Studying Historical Elements of Opera, Music, Theater, Religion, and Architecture in Verona, Italy” and “OMG Opera Thesis Production”

Ryan Low ’16, “Private Jurisdiction in 13th Century Paris”

Savannah Marquardt ’16, Classics, “Cult of Bendis”

Erin O’Brien ’16, Near Eastern Studies, “A Genealogy of the Veil in Post-Revolutionary Iranian Culture”

Safeeyah Quereshi ’16, Religion, “Perspectives on Intellectual Disabilities in Islam”

Miklos Szebeni ’16, History, “A Comparative Analysis of Late Antique Monastic Institutions”

Grace Singleton ’16, Religion, “Biblical female archetypes — Eve and Lilith — and their representation in Martha Graham’s Embattled Garden”

Rachel Wilson ’16, Art and Archaeology, “The Destruction of English Medieval Cathedrals during the Dissolution of the Monasteries” and “The Visual Cult of Saint Etheldreda”

Michal Wiseman’16, Psychology, “Prayer as a form of self-disclosure and therapy”

2014-2015 Fellows

Suzannah Beiner ’15, English, “Hamptons Ecchos: Monarchs and Meanings in the Rape of the Lock”

Alexandra Cerf ’15, Near Eastern Studies, “Soccer and Nation-Building in Qatar”

Aliyah Donsky ’15, Religion, “Understanding Growing Evangelical Advocacy for Comprehensive Immigration Reform”

Lauren Hoffman ’15, Religion, “Seek the Welfare of the City: Revitalization, Religion and Urbanism in Detroit”

Daniel Hwang ’15, Music, “Light is Risen: A Musical Depiction of the Creation, Fall, and Redemption of Mankind”

Rana Ibrahem ’15, Woodrow Wilson School, “Analyzing the role of external perceptions and frameworks on the democratization and economic growth of Turkey”

Stephanie Leotsakos ’16, Music, “Exploring the Practice, Theory, and Notation of Byzantine Ecclesiastical Music”

Aryeh Nussbaum ’15, History, “Parallel Paths, Divergent Fates: The Castrati of Italy in the Secular and Sacred Worlds of the 19th and 20th centuries”

Emmy Williams ’15, Religion, “Modern Mormon Feminist Movement”

2013-2014 Fellows

Ruwa Alhayek ’14, Near Eastern Studies, “Changes from Within the Muslim Brotherhood with Regards to the “Woman Question”

Miryam Amsili ’14, History, “Neo-Nazism, Anti-Semitism, or Anti-Zionism? Understanding the Debates Surrounding the Eichmann Affair in Argentina”

Miriam Araya ’14, Sociology, “Transnational Organizations and Eritrean Immigrants”

Sheeba Arif ’14, Comparative Literature, “Islamic Feminism vs. Neocolonial Feminism”

Madison Bush ’14, History, “Colonial Mexican Libraries (16th-17th Century)”

Ahsen Nimet Cebeci ’14, Philosophy, “Dualism in Ancient Greek and Islamic Philosophy”

Brittany Hardy ’14, Religion, “The Rastafari Movement and Jamaican Perception of Bob Marley’s Musical Impact on the Faith”

Katherine Hawkins ’15, Music, “Works of Devotion: Creation of the Sacred in Gregorian Chant and Hindu Rāgas”

Lauren Hoffman ’15, Religion, “Religious Contemporaries: Munich’s Herz Jesu Church and Ohel Jakob Synagogue”

Allegra Mango ’14, Anthropology, “The Religious Experiences of Individuals Diagnosed With Terminal Illness”

Joel Newberger ’14, Comparative Literature, “Charles Olson, Mystery Cults, Myths, and Dreams”

Susannah Sharpless ’15, Religion, “Quakerism and Ezra Pound’s Imagism”

Kristin Wilson ’14, Comparative Literature, “Bride Songs of the Yoruba and Ga Peoples: A Literary Analysis of a Cultural Phenomenon”

Allegra Wiprud ’14, Woodrow Wilson School, “Ethnic and Religious Conflict in Bangladesh”

Applications will be received again in Spring 2014.

2012-2013 Fellows

Saud Al-Thani 13, Near Eastern Studies, “Joseph: A comparison of Muslim and Jewish Narratives”

Laura Anderson ’13, Religion, “Religion and End of Life Issues in Pediatric Cancer”

Christina Campodonico 13, English, “Architecture, Illustration, and Narrative in the Works of Thomas Hardy”

Ahsen Nimet Cebeci ’14, Philosophy, ”Care of the Soul: a Comparative Study of the Soul in the Islamic and Platonist Traditions”

Stephanie Colello 13, Slavic Languages and Literatures, “Childbirth in Contemporary Russia”

Brandon Davis 13, Anthropology, “The Role of Israel in Gay Jewish Identity”

Margaret Fox 13, History, “Israel and the Modern Messianic Jewish Movement”

Nava Friedman ’13, Religion, “Choosing to Be Chosen: Religious Identity Among the New Jews of East Africa”

Aseneth Garza 13, Anthropology, “The Emergence of Violence in Religious Leader’s Discourse in Post-Conflict Guatemala”

Aaron Glasserman ’13, Near Eastern Studies, “State Control of Islamic Education in China”

Monica Greco 13, Classics, “The Interaction between Romans and Ancient Bedouins along the Limes Arabicus

Sarah Hedgecock 13, Anthropology, “Gender Performance in Evangelical Purity Culture”

Kristen Kim ’13, Psychology, “The Intersection of Suicide and the Christian Faith in South Korea”

Enoch Kuo ’13, Religion, “Reformed Epistemology and Pluralism”

Mohit Manohar ’13, Art and Archaeology, “Architecture of Ayodhya”

Nadirah Mansour ’ 14, Near Eastern Studies, “A Comparison of Ruling Party Politics and Religion in Zanzibar and the Tanzanian Mainland”

Madeline McMahon ’13, History, “Historical Scholarship and Protestant Confessional Identity in Sixteenth-Century England”

Sajda Ouachtouki 13, Woodrow Wilson School, “The Strategies Employed Women in Morocco and Tunisia Post Arab Spring”

Sarah Paton 13, Religion, “The Growth and Structuring of Humanist Communities”

Kathryn Phillips 13, Psychology, “The Relationship between Religious Belief in a Higher Power’s Plan and how People Construe Situations as Controllable or Uncontrollable”

Tessa Romano ’13, French and Italian, “The Effects of Non-Jews on Jewish Italian synagogue Music and Services in 16th Century Italy”

Elizabeth Scullin 13, Anthropology “Church and Sex: The Irish Traveller Movement, Religion, and Dating”

Robert Stuart ’ 14, Religion, “Holy Words: Parallels in Perception of the Constitution and the Bible”

Alice Su 13, Woodrow Wilson School, “Mass Media and Public Diplomacy in U.S.-Sino-Egyptian Relations

Stephanie Tam ’13, English, “Postcolonial Literature and British Fantasy Literature”

2011-2012 Fellows

Daniel Bohac ’12, Religion, “The Apocryphon of James and Early Chrisitan “Wisdom Gospels”

John Butler ’12, Art and Archaeology, “St. Charles Borromeo, Church Art and Architecture and the Council of Trent”

Elizabeth Cooper ’12, Anthropology, “Mind and Body in Spiritual Communities”

Marjorie Crowell ’12, Sociology, “Use of Contraception among College-Age Youth in Ireland”

Jonathan Evans ’12, Anthropology, “‘With Cloven Tongues like as of Fire’: Glossolalia and the Sacred Collective”

Trent Fuenmayor ’12, WWS, “Comparative study between Religious Aid Organizations and Secular NGO’s in East Africa”

Elena Garadja ’12, Philosophy, “Kant and Nietzsche’s philosophy of religion”

Julie Han ’12, Psychology, “The Impact of Religiosity/Spirituality on Somatic Sympoms and Health Behaviors in College Undergraduates”

Lauren Jackson ’12, History, “Comparison of North African Muslim Immigrants’ Experience in France and United States”

Julia Keimach ’12, English, “‘Hero of an Age’: An original play examining illegal theatre in England during the Interregnum Period”

Diana Lam ’12. Archaeology, “Informal Cities and Urban Growth: An Investigation of Dharavi, Mumbai”

Aarian Marshall ’12, Religion, “Coalfields and a Comparative Study of Faith-Based Political Organizing”

Hasan Onder Polat ’12, Economics, “Economic Analysis of Ethnic Religious and Tribal Politics”

Amelia Ridgeway ’12, Religion, “Tibetan Buddhism”

Michelle Ripplinger ’12, English, “Reading and Authorship in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue”

Miriam Rosenbaum ’12, WWS, “The Portrayal of Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) Israeli Women in Film and Media”

Michele Tyler ’12, Anthropology, “Homeboy Industries: Cycles of Violence, Religion, and Gangs in Downtown L.A.”

Julia Vill ’12, History, “The Pre-Roe Pro-Life Movement in Minnesota and New York”