Gabriela Tafoya ‘19 (Ph.D.) has started in her new position as a tenure-track assistant professor of political science at Manchester University in Indiana.
POLS majors Shankara Narayanan ‘21 (B.A.) and Justin Rodriguez have been selected as CLS and Gilman scholars, respectively.
Damani Douglas, a senior undergraduate in the department, has been named one of 50 members of the inaugural class of Social Justice Fellows by the Martin Luther King Memorial Foundation. Mr. Douglas is also one of three POLS majors who currently serves on the Provost’s Strategic planning Committee — the other two students are Neha Kataria and Ethan Werstler.
Shaznene Hussain ‘19 (Ph.D.) recently began her new position as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Women’s and Gender Studies at Hamilton College.
Carol Gray, a Ph.D. student who received a 2021-22 Dissertation Fellowship from UConn’s Humanities Institute (UCHI), will be giving a Research Talk on October 20, 2021 on the topic “Shifting the Legal Paradigm: Lawyer/Activist Partnerships in Authoritarian Contexts.” See https://humanities.uconn.edu/category/news/.
Ph.D. student Thomas Briggs was awarded a 2021 Wood/Raith Gender Identity Living Trust summer fellowship to conduct research with a primary focus on gender activity. The top 12 candidates across nine departments/programs were offered awards of $4,000 each.
Sercan Canbolat, a Ph.D. student currently teaching at UConn’s Stamford campus, has secured a tenure-track position as an assistant professor of international relations at Kadir Has University, one of the top ten research universities in Turkey. He will begin that position in Fall 2022.
Seyedamir Mahdavi, a Ph.D. student, published a think piece on Iran’s new president in The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage. He also took part in a conference this past summer on institutions and politics in Iran sponsored by the Arab Center for Research & Policy Studies.
Ph.D. student Dabney Waring (joined by Zehra Arat) presented a paper entitled “Rethinking Work, the Right to Work, and Automation,” at the 26th World Conference of the International Studies Association this past July.
Senior major Michael Hernandez has been named one of 20 students nationally to be selected as a Key into Public Service Scholar by Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s most prestigious academic honor society. According to the Director of Phi Beta Kappa’s National Arts & Sciences Initiative, “the academic achievement breadth and depth in the liberal arts and sciences, and demonstrated interest in public service of this accomplished student stand out, even among the many impressive applicants we reviewed from our chapter campuses across the nation.” Michael Hernandez’s award includes a $5,000 undergraduate scholarship.