September 2020 Kudos

September 10, 2020

Craig Allen, PhD ’19, (American Studies) was named a 2020 American Council of Learned Societies Emerging Voices Fellow.

Senior Zoya Ansari (Political Communication) authored the article “A Master Guide to Debunking the Political Communication Major” for College Magazine.

Eyal Aviv (Religion) authored the book Differentiating the Pearl from the Fish-Eye: Ouyang Jingwu and the Revival of Scholastic Buddhism (Brill, 2020).

David R. Braun (Anthropology) was awarded a $245,615 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for collaborative research on ecosystem change in the Turkana Basin in East Africa.

Sophomore Samantha Carlisle authored the article “Environmental racism endangers Utah children” for The Salt Lake Tribune.

Dante Chinni (Media and Public Affairs) received a $650,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study how policymakers understand cultural, socioeconomic and political changes at the local level.

Gil Cisneros, BA ’94, (Political Science), U.S. representative for California's 39th congressional district, was profiled on the Spectrum News feature “L.A. Stories.”

Patrick Cox (Psychological and Brain Sciences) was awarded a $59,446 grant from the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command for a project on quantifying how eyesight is distracted by similar-seeming objects during complex visual searches.

David DeGrazia (Philosophy) presented the talk “Consciousness, Pain, and 'Enhanced Awareness' in Nonhuman Animals: Key Concepts, Evidence, and Ethical Implications” at a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine workshop.

Alexander Dent (Anthropology) authored the book Digital Pirates: Policing Intellectual Property in Brazil (Stanford University Press, 2020).

Evangeline Downie (Physics) received a $550,000 grant from NSF for investigating the nucleon with electromagnetic probes.

Holly Dugan (English) co-coordinated a four-session series for Folger Institute Consortium graduate students across the United States and the United Kingdom to address research needs during the pandemic.

Junior Blake Flayton (Political Communication) was quoted by The Jerusalem Post in the article “Jewish Republicans and Democrats agree on this: Watch Florida.”

Xiaofei Kang received an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship for her book project Enchanted Revolution: Ghosts, Shamans, and Gender Politics in Communist Propaganda, 1942-1953.

Edith Alejandra Leiva, MA ’20, (Interaction Design) was featured by Baltimore Business Journal in the article “Survivors: GWU accelerator grad looks north for first outpost, undaunted.”

Kip Lornell (Music) is a finalist for the Writer of the Year award from the International Bluegrass Music Association for Capital Bluegrass: Hillbilly Music Meets Washington DC (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Brooke McDonough, MA ’20, (New Media Photojournalism) won first place in the 2020 Yale Environment 360 Video Contest for the short film “Buzz Kill,” about threats to the world’s bee population.

Doctoral student Shannon McQueen (Political Science) was quoted by USA Today in the article “What it takes to build a nonpartisan pipeline for female candidates.”

Carson Murray (Anthropology) was awarded a $25,200 grant from NSF to study female chimpanzee behavior and reproduction in forest fragments in Rwanda.

Harris Mylonas (Political Science) co-authored an introductory essay for a Nationalities Papers virtual issue on Belarus.

Master’s candidate Charles Parkhurst (Criminology) contributed to the article “When America's schools reopen, police don't belong there” for The Hill.

Senior Amy Patronella (Political Communication) was quoted by The Washington Post in the article “In college towns and neighborhoods, permanent residents brace for students’ return.”

Chet Sherwood (Anthropology) was awarded a $458,776 grant from NSF to conduct collaborative research on the development and evolution of primate brains.

Dmitry Streletskiy (Geography) received two grants from NSF: $305,954 for a project on navigating convergent pressures on Arctic development; and $299,382 to study rapid Arctic environmental changes and implications for well-being, resilience and evolution of Arctic communities.

Amulya Yaparla, PhD ’20, (Biology) was selected as one of the 2020 recipients of the Chorafas Foundation award for excellent dissertations in the life sciences.