Grants Awarded

The following grants were awarded in fiscal year 2024:

FACULTY GRANTS

Humanities

Catina Bacote, Assistant Professor of English, was selected as a 2024 Mellon Arts & Practitioner Fellow at the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity and Transnational Migration (RITM) during Spring 2024. As a fellow, she is completing a nonfiction book chronicling the lasting impact of the 1980s drug epidemic on Black families and communities through a blend of personal narrative and reportage. Read more.

Davarian Baldwin, Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies, received a $150,000 grant from the Marguerite Casey Foundation to support his Smart Cities Research Lab housed within the Trinity Social Justice Institute. The three-year grant will fund Davarian’s travel to and consultation for communities across the country undergoing Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) campaigns. The grant will also support summer research students in the lab. Read more.

Christopher Hager, Hobart Professor of the Humanities and Professor of English, was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend for his project, The Public Library and the Unfinished Civil War. Chris will conduct research and writing leading to a book on how the ascendancy of U.S. public libraries during the Reconstruction Era (1863-1877) has shaped their subsequent history. Read more.

Blase Provitola, Assistant Professor of Language and Culture Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality, was selected to be a Research Associate at the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center for the upcoming Fall 2024 semester. Blase will be working on their monograph, Against Heterocoloniality: Women Desiring Differently in Contemporary France’s North African Diasporas, which challenges universalizing tendencies in queer studies using a literary and activist archive and focuses on women of North African descent who have resisted coloniality and heterosexuality from the 1970s to the present.

Physical/Natural Sciences

Sally Bernardina Seraphin, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, was awarded the Whitman Fellowship at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, MA. This prestigious fellowship included lab space at MBL, research supplies, and housing for nine weeks in the summer of 2024. She was also awarded the E. E. Just fellowship to support an undergraduate researcher to work with her at MBL. This was the third consecutive summer that Sally spent at MBL. She focused on her project, Evo-Devo Approaches to Stress in Centrolenidae. Read more.

Michelle Kovarik, Gregory G. Mario ’87 Professor of Chemistry, received an American Chemical Society (ACS) SEED grant to provide a high school student from an underrepresented background with a stipend to participate in chemistry research projects at Trinity for 8 weeks during the summer.

Susan Masino, Vernon D. Roosa Professor of Applied Science, was awarded a fellowship with RESTORE: The North Woods during the spring semester. As part of the fellowship, Susan was able to apply her science and public policy expertise to highlight the need for nature while engaging with RESTORE’s mission to Create Parks, Save Forests, Protect Wildlife.

Ewa Syta, Associate Professor of Computer Science, received a prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar award to spend the 2024-25 academic year in Poland working on her project:  Long-term Strategy for an eIDAS 2.0 Compliant Digital Identity Wallet for Poland. She will be working in collaboration with researchers at the country’s National Research Institute (NASK) to develop the strategy for the implementation of a digital identity wallet (read more). Ewa also received a supplemental Research Experiences for Undergraduates award from the National Science Foundation that provided funding for two students to work on her NSF-funded collaborative research project, Applied Cryptographic Protocols with Provably-Secure Foundation, with the University of Connecticut.

Social Sciences

Dang Do, Assistant Professor of Political Science, received a grant from The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving under their 2024 Civic Engagement and Get Out the Vote initiative for his project, A Civically-Engaged Approach to Social Network GOTV in the Hartford Community. This grant will support an approach to increase voter turnout in Hartford through recruitment and training of community members to mobilize their social networks.

Amanda Guzmán, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, was accepted into the inaugural research fellowship cohort entitled, Archives, Memory & the Present Past of Puerto Rico hosted by the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College. This one-year fellowship is part of a new 5-year research initiative entitled, Rooted & Relational. Amanda will spend the 2024-25 academic year at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies.

Britney Jones, Visiting Assistant Professor of Educational Studies, was granted a sub-award from UCONN as part of a larger grant awarded by the Connecticut COVID-19 Education Research Collaborative (CCERC). Britney will collaborate with other researchers in Connecticut on the project, Equity in Academic Recovery, which seeks to explore associations between student learning models during the pandemic and student outcomes over time with the goal of identifying practices and approaches that have been successful in supporting academic recovery.

Isaac Kamola, Associate Professor of Political Science, was selected to lead the newly established Center on the Defense of Academic Freedom through a Mellon Foundation Grant to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). The Center aims to bring together higher education and academic freedom experts to investigate political interference in higher education and develop a means of addressing this issue. The two-and-a-half-year $1.5 million grant to the AAUP will provide Isaac salary and a course release to allow him time for this endeavor. He also was awarded a small grant from AAUP during the leadup to this larger grant. Read more.

STUDENT GRANT RECIPIENTS

Olivia McMichael ’24 (working with Professor Clay Byers and Alexandra Barrett ’24, Tyler Gilette ’24, and Zoe Tiffin ’24) received a NASA CT Space Grant Award for her project, Variability in Wave Energy Capturing from Triboelectric Nanogenerator. The primary objective of the project was to create a scalable TENG wave energy converter that efficiently transforms wave energy into usable electricity.

Rebecca Irakiza received a Projects for Peace grant for her Water for Peace Project. The project seeks to rehabilitate non-functioning existing water boreholes in the Rugombo Commune of Burundi and establish a locally-centered ongoing water management mechanism for sustainability. Projects for Peace awards approximately 125 grants each year and Trinity College students have received at least one grant every year since the 2007 program creation. These grants are administered jointly with Trinity’s Center for Urban and Global Studies.

During the 2023-24 academic year, Trinity College was recognized as a Top Producer of Fulbright U.S. Students. This recognition was due to five students receiving Fulbright awards during the 2023 cycle. Our new Fulbright recipients for the 2024 cycle are:

• Felix Thompson ’24 was awarded a Fulbright for an English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) in Tajikistan.  Read more.
• Sarah Durkee ’24 won a Fulbright Austria Combined Award. She will conduct research in affiliation with the Sigmund Freud Museum on people’s relationship with technology, take classes, and Teach English in Vienna, Austria. Read more.
• Emeline Avignon ‘24 was named an alternate for the Fulbright ETA in Morocco.

Other Student Fellowships

• Jake Loor ‘25 was a finalist for the Truman Scholarship.
• Nawal Khurram ‘24 was one of just 10 finalists for the Pakistan Rhodes Scholarship.

INSTITUTIONAL GRANTS

Project Grants

Mary Mahoney, Digital Scholarship Strategist received a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation to fund an Art+Feminism Wikipedia edit-a-thon. The event was planned with the Center for Hartford Engagement and Research’s Public Humanities Collaborative to foster collaboration with community partners and create content on Connecticut-related women and non-binary artists.

Deborah Goffe, Executive Director of the Austin Arts Center and Artist-in-Residence of Theater and Dance, was awarded a grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) to support a four-day residency at Trinity for Jean Appolon Expressions (JAE), a Haitian contemporary dance company based in Boston. The residency will include a dance/music workshop for Trinity students, a dance masterclass for local high school students, public conversations about Appolon’s work, and a public performance.

Trinity student organization, Temple of Hip Hop, was awarded a grant from the Greater Hartford Arts Council to support the 18th annual Trinity International Hip Hop Festival. The festival included a full array of events over three days including lectures, showcases, graffiti exhibitions, film screenings, panel discussions, production workshops, and an open mic session. This grant effort was led by student Aleema Kelly ’26, one of the event co-directors, working with faculty advisor Seth Markle, Associate Professor of History and International Studies.

Eric Galm, Professor of Music and Ethnomusicology, received a grant from the Greater Hartford Arts Council to support the 16th Annual Samba Fest. The festival celebrates music, dance, community, and the arts in the style and spirit of the Brazilian carnival with performances, workshops, and activities for all ages. Read more.

Trinity’s Watkinson Library received a grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation to continue the Watkinson Library Institute. Eric Stoykovich, College Archivist and Manuscript Librarian, and Eric Johnson-DeBaufre, Rare Books and Special Collections Librarian, lead the institute with a goal of teaching Trinity faculty and staff, as well as educators from other institutions, ways to incorporate special collections into their courses. This was the second year they received funding from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. Read more on the first year programming here.

The Henry Luce Foundation provided a grant to support the Trinity Social Justice Institute (TSJI). Led by Co-Directors, Jordan Camp, Assistant Professor of American Studies and Christina Heatherton, Elting Associate Professor of American Studies and Human Rights, the TSJI provides public lectures and conversations, a webinar series, research clusters, conferences, and a podcast. The TSJI works in partnership with the Smart Cities Research Lab run by Davarian Baldwin, Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies.

Trinfo.Café was awarded a grant from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving under the Love Your Block program. The award will be used to make repairs and updates to the community garden including building new garden beds to increase growing capacity and adding modifications to existing beds that will extend the growing season. The project is being led by Karolina Barrientos, Trinfo Program Manager, in partnership with neighborhood residents. Read more.

Dream Camp received support from the Elizabeth M. Landon and Harriette M. Landon Charitable Foundation, the Stanley D. and Hinda N. Fisher Fund, the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, and Enterprise Holdings Foundation during the 2023-24 year. Each year Dream Camp provides a five-week day camp for community residents age six to 16 and an after school program during the academic year for students from the Hartford Public School system. Read more.

The Rathmann Family Foundation supported Trinity’s Student Emergency and Equity Fund (SEEF) with a generous grant. SEEF is a collaborative effort between the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and the division of Student Success and Enrollment Management that provides students with financial assistance for significant, unforeseen, unavoidable emergencies and unexpected expenses. More than 2,000 students have been supported by the fund since its inception.

Hybrid Pathways, a Hartford-based IT firm, provided a grant to Trinity to support the Computer Science Department’s Technology and Leadership internships for students during Spring 2024 and 2025 semesters; Women in Computer Science events; and Trinity’s Cybersecurity Mini-Conference. Hybrid Pathways also plans to offer two paid internships at their company during the summer. Ewa Syta, Associate Professor of Computer Science, leads many of the initiatives supported by the grant. Now in its fourth year, this partnership has been a tremendous success and has grown each year. Read more here and here.

The Hilla von Rebay Foundation awarded Trinity with a grant to support the Studio Arts Fifth Year Fellow program. Funding will help the Fifth-Year Fellows cover their expenses throughout their time at Trinity.

The Tanaka Memorial Foundation awarded Trinity a grant to support international engagement. Funding supported the participation of Trinity’s cohort to the 2024 Technos International Week and the Tanaka Fund for International Research, which sponsors student research in Asia.

Scholarships/Financial Aid Grants

Trinity also received generous grants from the following organizations in support of student scholarships and financial aid:

• Davis United World College Scholars Program
• MasterCard Foundation African Leadership Academy
• Scholarships for Illinois Residents, Inc.
• Taylor Educational Foundation
• New York Community Trust (A. Evelyn Cronquist Fund)

TRINITY INTERNAL GRANTS: ACADEMIC YEAR 2023-24

A grant to Associate Professor of Economics Rasha M. Ahmed allowed her to expand her data set and undertake a thorough analysis of the automobile market to study the changes in car design resulting from the new CAFE regulation with a particular focus on changes in car size and fuel economy to see if new regulations achieved their objective of improving fuel economy.

Assistant Professor of Language and Culture Studies and Human Rights Diana Aldrete‘s grant supported EcoMaterialities, an artistic project that reflects on how bodies engage, react, and contend with the ecological urgency that is our planet in the face of climate change and environmental injustices in marginalized communities.

Professor of Political Science Stefanie Chambers received funding to continue work on Dreaming in Somali, a collaborative documentary film project with Somali American women in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. The film follows these determined women in their daily lives while they advocate for fundamental change.

A grant to Visiting Assistant Professor of Language and Culture Jose Carlos Diaz supported research for a book to historicize and theorize the formation of an indigenous decolonial critique that simultaneously engages in dialogue with events of indigenous insurgency and with a corpus of radical indigenista essays that had a high impact on many Latin American countries.

Associate Professor of Philosophy Shane M. Ewegen received funding for research concerning the life and thought of Afra Geiger, a Jewish woman killed in the Holocaust at the age of 49. Almost completely unknown to the scholarly world, Geiger rubbed elbows with some of the greatest minds of 20th-century Europe, including Husserl, Jaspers, Arendt, and Heidegger. The grant supported on-site archival and on-site research in Germany and the Netherlands.

Professor of Music Eric Galm‘s grant supported research on Verna Gillis, an ethnomusicologist who traveled extensively in the 1970s and produced 25 recordings of traditional music released on the Folkways and Lyrichord labels featuring music from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Peru, Suriname, Gambia, Ghana, India, and Native American music in North America.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Urban Studies Shoshana R. Goldstein received a grant for research investigating how Gurugram, India, a city of migrants, has adapted its policies in response to the crisis of migrant mobility exposed by the pandemic.

Funded research by Associate Professor of Language and Culture Studies Rosario Hubert focused on why the Antarctic plateau, a desert utterly overlooked in the Latin American cultural tradition, which is the epitome of inhospitability, has also come to convey both fantasies of timelessness and of a future of global warming. Funding supported travel to Buenos Aires for archival work.

Principal Lecturer in Language and Culture Studies Karen L Humphreys received a grant to conduct research on how work of Céline Bidard de la Noë, who published novels and short stories under the pseudonym Paria Korigan, challenged late 19h-century conventions and attitudes regarding gender roles and stereotypes, social and class inequities, and regional-rural biases.

Shafqat Hussain, the George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian Studies, used his grant to investigate how tourism to what was once a remote and isolated mountainous region of Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan’s north is becoming central to a middle class Pakistani national identity.

Associate Professor of Political Science Isaac A. Kamola received funding for a book project examining efforts by the fossil fuel industry and conservative donor-activists to build an integrated political network of think tanks to spread pro-corporate libertarian ideology around the world.

A grant to Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance Rebecca K. Pappas supported continued work on My Body as the Topic Coming Around Again, a three-volume dance work that enacts a bodily conversation with the history of American Modern Dance in New England.

Thomas C. Brownell Professor of Philosophy Todd Ryan received a grant to conduct research on Archbishop William King’s De Origine Mali, one of the early modern period’s most influential theodicies, attracting critical responses from contemporaries such as Bayle, Berkeley, and Leibniz as well as providing the intellectual foundation for Pope’s Essay on Man.

Assistant Professor of Economics Ibrahim Shikaki was funded to do research exploring the economic approaches adopted in both Palestinian academia as well as economic research and policy examining, in particular, whether the dominant neoclassical approach is solely utilized or if other heterodox approaches are taken into consideration.