Summer immersive fellowships provide Ph.D. students with the opportunity to gain experiences with host organizations in collaborative, mission-focused project work drawing on their high-level skills as researchers and writers. Co-mentored by the host organization supervisors, the Faculty Mentor for Summer Immersive Fellowship Cohort, and the Senior Director for Graduate Advising and Engagement for the Humanities, they broaden and deepen their academic and professional development in preparation for high-impact careers within and beyond the academy.
Summer 2023
As an applied ethnomusicologist Seyi Ajibade (Music) will be working with Àkójopò, a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization aimed at creating accessible means for Nigerian musicians to pursue their artistic visions. During his Summer Immersive, Seyi will be volunteering as the rehearsal coordinator for Àkójopò’s concert productions, organizing community engagements and programs for music educators; and continuing his research on music and sustainability.
Payne Banister (Theatre Arts) will put his research into practice by working with the Pittsburgh Queer History Project (PQHP) and its MS89 screening series. MS89 holds space for people from the community to gather and watch films from important moments in local history, whether drag pageants, HIV/AIDS fundraising events, queer cable network programs, or other types of community events. By bringing in guest speakers who were involved in the making of the screening materials, the series actively engages in intergenerational community-making and connection that is lost by sitting in isolated archive rooms or on solitary computer searches.
Josh Brew (Music) will continue building on his music and sustainability research. Josh will resume his working relationship with the Legon Palmwine Band (LPB) and undertake a community-engaged project using Ghanaian palmwine music to raise environmental awareness in Ghana.
Alison Mahoney (Theatre Arts) will be working with Film Pittsburgh on their ReelAbilities Festival. The ReelAbilities Festival is a week-long international festival that promotes awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories, and artistic expressions of individuals with disabilities. Her current ethnographic research into international disability arts practices highlights exciting initiatives to integrate accessibility creatively within arts spaces and to deeply involve the disability community in arts programming.
Natalia Rivera Morales (Hispanic Languages & Literatures) will have the opportunity of being a graduate intern at the Smithsonian Institution under the guidance of Professor Luis Antonio Curet, a Curator of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). As a graduate intern, Natalia will support Dr. Curet’s efforts to set up an exhibit on Indigenous Calisthenics by researching and locating pertinent primary and secondary sources on pre-Modern indigenous sports. While Natalia is not an expert in indigenous athletics, supporting Dr. Curet’s curatorial labor will provide her critical training in accessible exhibition design, research beyond her immediate discipline, and education for the broader public.
Stella Wadiru (Music) will conduct a collaborative music workshop with refugee-popular artists in the Adjumani district in nothern Uganda. This workshop aims to understand how music, dance, and theater are used to help them work through their experiences of violence, displacement, and trauma. As collaborative research, the workshop represents an opportunity for Stella to understand the role of music and dance in their lives. Stella will be working with the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) whose goal is to coordinate international activities of the many Lutheran churches and to assist in philanthropy, missionary activity, and exchanges of students and professors.
Summer 2022
Read the Pittwire article on this year's Pitch Your Own Summer Immersive Fellows: Pitt’s Humanities Engage program is re-imagining doctoral education
Josh Brew (Music) will put his research on music sustainability into practice by interviewing the musicians, audiences, and patrons of the Ghanaian Legon Palmwine Band and then creating a workshop and access to music business resources.
Drawing on his research interests, Alex Holguin (Communication) will re-vitalize the communication of the Neighborhood Resilience Project’s work in trauma-informed community development through their website and social media
Summer 2021
See the summer 2021 cohort flyer (PDF).
Courtney Colligan (Theatre Arts) will use her doctoral and career interests in the arts and social justice to collaborate with The Women and Girls Foundation on a project informed by the Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) method by crafting a curriculum for GirlGov members and developing a literature review.
Drawing on his academic work and his experience working in digital advertising, Felix Helbing (Slavic Languages and Literatures) will collaborate with the Federation of Tech Workers and Work Hard Pittsburgh to develop a strategy to gather data and then analyze and organize it into a cohesive narrative about workers in the Pittsburgh tech economy.
Using her research and curriculum design skills, Victoria LaFave (Theatre Arts) will develop assessments of student engagement for the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and a dance cultural history curriculum that highlights the relationship between classical ballet and other prominent dance forms and explores social issues of race and coloniality.
For CO/LAB Theater Group, Alison Mahoney (Theatre Arts) will utilize her professional experience and doctoral research in disability and the arts to create a community-informed program evaluation, reimagine their Actor Log, and complete an accessibility audit of their classroom tools and practices.
Taylor Waits (English) will support the research, development, and implementation of trainings related to current curriculum and instruction trends in K-12 education and anti-racism and use her digital storytelling and social media experience to develop educational collateral with Single Seed Enrichment School.
Oscar Zapata Garcia (Hispanic Languages and Literatures) will utilize his editorial experience and language skills to work with Casa San Jose by supporting their editorial and communications strategy, developing a social media marketing plan, re-designing and optimizing their newsletter, and translating documents.
Summer 2020
See the summer 2020 cohort flyer (PDF).
Charles Athanasopoulos (Communication) is working with Monument Lab to expand an on-going performance art project - Sweet Chariot, an interactive video scavenger hunt of African American history, conceptualized and directed by artist Marisa Williamson - and to expand their archival database of public art works funded by Confederate legacy groups.
- Iconography and (Anti-)Black Rhetoric(s): Understanding Public Art
- Monument Lab and Monumental Learning: Iconography and Public Art
Eve Barden (Film & Media Studies (Slavic concentration))’s Monument Lab project is to produce educational videos on historical topics for Dr. Patricia Eunji Kim’s Queens Who Rule (QWR), an emerging multi-media public history platform that brings life to the art, stories, and political experiences of women throughout history.
At the Juvenile Justice-Involved Youth project in UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, Dominique Branson (Linguistics) is analyzing and synthesizing data related to Black girls' experiences and involvement with the juvenile justice system in Allegheny County to develop an equity report that informs Pittsburgh stakeholders about ways to better serve at-risk Black girls in the city.
- Anti-Racist Yoga and Juvenile Justice-Involved Youth
- Language and Black Girls’ Experience in the Juvenile Justice System
With RefocusED, Inc., Nelson Felipe Castañeda Rojas (Hispanic Languages and Literatures) is supporting the Voices Against Violence Summer Camp and building research on trauma-sensitive youth educational models, practices, curriculum, and programs.
As a Remote Volunteer Citizenship Class Translator & Teaching Assistant with the Catholic Charities of Los Angeles’ Citizenship Education Program, Darrelstan Ferguson (Hispanic Languages and Literatures) is helping non-English speakers prepare for the English test/interview that is necessary for obtaining permanent U.S. citizenship.
- Preparing New Citizens
- Civics, Culture, and Language: Supporting Immigrants through the Citizenship Process
Treviene Harris (English) is using her experience in advocacy, research, and community involvement to provide Fresh Spirit Wellness for Women, a domestic violence counseling agency, with administrative assistance in database management, grant research, and grant writing.
- A Fresh Spirit for Domestic Violence Advocacy
- Grant Writing to Make a Difference: Helping in the Fight Against Domestic Violence
Kimberly Hoover (English) is supporting the research Awaken Pittsburgh conducts on their mindfulness programming in three areas: Children/Youth Programming (social and emotional regulation); Implicit Bias Awareness and Dismantling; and Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness Practices/Delivery.
- Measuring the Effectiveness of Mindfulness Training
- Thinking through the Complexities of Mindfulness and Meditation
At Monument Lab, Janina Lopez (History of Art and Architecture) is assisting artist Michelle Angela Ortiz with her Hemispheric Latinx Artist Research project; providing research for an in-progress database about monuments along or upon the U.S./Mexico border; and developing projects with the information acquired for the database.
- Along the U.S.-Mexico Border: Understanding Monuments
- Moving Across Time, Medium, and Space: My Work with Monument Lab
Patoimbasba Nikiema (French) is providing individual and small group support to students at ARYSE, a student-centered organization that supports immigrant and refugee youth in becoming engaged, confident, and celebrated members of the community.
- Eyes on the PRYSE: Social Integration for Refugee and Immigrant Youth
- Reimagining the Experiences of Refugees and Immigrants
Sean Nonnenmacher (Linguistics) is creating a StoryBank, a database of recorded personal narratives from Phoenix lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) youth, among others, for GLSEN Phoenix, which will pilot “data” in the form of approximately 25-30 personal narratives.
Brenda Sólkez (Hispanic Languages and Literatures) is following the methodology of Teaching Spanish to Heritage Speakers to teach a summer camp for Casa San Jose, a non-profit organization based in Pittsburgh that supports and advocates for the integration and self-sufficiency of Latinx and Hispanic communities.
- Teaching Spanish to Heritage Speakers
- The Language of Bonding: Teaching and Learning from Latinx Youth
For the Walpole Children’s Theatre, Christopher Staley (Theatre Arts) is doing archival and historical work to organize the group’s 50-year history in a clear, schematic form; researching grant opportunities; and assisting with their summer shows over Zoom.
Mathew Tembo (Music) is collaborating with the Bloggers of Zambia, a civic organization that explores the use of virtual platforms as alternative spaces in which Zambia’s citizenry can participate in the democratic process of the country, to engage interlocutors (particularly women in the music industry), edit blog posts, enhance content, and facilitate capacity building of the organization.
In order to help improve Radical Monarchs’ administrative efficiency, Taylor Waits (English) will be working on grant tracking, database management, and communications for the non-profit organization that serves as an alternative to the Scout movement for girls of color, aged 8-13.