Shelby Houghton ‘22 (CLAS), a double major in Political Science and Human Rights, won a Fall 2021 UConn Co-op Legacy Fellowship Program Change Grant. Born out of the UConn Co-op’s commitment to public engagement, innovative entrepreneurship, social impact, and active mentorship, the program provides undergraduates with resources to engage in projects that make an impact. Shelby’s current project is titled “Rest is Revolution: UConn’s week of Reflection.”
Four POLS Majors – Noah Frank ‘22 (CLAS), Michael Hernandez ‘22 (CLAS), Michael Vedar ‘22 (CLAS), and Samantha Lamb ‘22 (CLAS) – are among 11 UConn students who will be participating in the Millennial Fellowship Program, which seeks to advance the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
POLS majors Srimayi Chaturvedula ‘23 (CLAS) and Ethan Werstler ‘22 (CLAS) were prominently featured in a UConn Today article titled “Student Help Students in Fight Against Food Insecurity.”
Ph.D. candidates Chloe Kwak, San Lee, and Minju Lee will be presenting a paper titled “Unexpected Women’s Solidarity and Anti-Feminist Backlashes around ‘Fearless Girl’ and the ‘Comfort Women Statue’” at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) in Chicago this coming spring. Their paper focuses on the formation and the competition of diverse political networks surrounding those two symbolic statues. In addition, Minju Lee will be presenting her own paper titled “How Strangers Become Friends: The Role of Sovereignty Disputes in Accumulating Political Trust Between States” at the same conference.
Benjamin Stumpf, another Ph.D. candidate, published a piece titled “Is Language a Battlefield?” in the November 23, 2021 edition of Black Issues in Philosophy, a blog of the American Philosophical Association. Additionally, Stumpf and fellow Ph.D. candidate Brooks Kirchgassner will be presenting papers at the Western Political Science Association conference this spring.
Meanwhile, Ph.D. candidate Altan Atamer will present a paper titled “International Relations Orientalist Curation of World War I: A Critical Intervention in the Mythology of a Discipline” at the MPSA in Chicago.
Ph.D. candidate Carol Gray recently published an article titled “Decolonialism’s Reframing of French Existentialism in Fanon’s The Drowning Eye – A Study of Racial Binaries and National Consciousness” in the January 15, 2022 on-line first issue of The CLR James Journal: A Review of Caribbean Ideas.
Sercan Canbolat received the 2021 ISA-Midwest’s Margaret Hermann Award for his paper titled “Deciphering Political Islamists’ Rhetoric in Their Native Language: A Turkish Operational Code Analysis Approach.” Sercan has won the Hermann award two years in a row.
Nathan Perez-Espitia, a POLS and Philosophy double major, was prominently featured as a success story in the UConn Center for Career Development blog last November. Nathan has interned with the Connecticut Lieutenant Governor’s Office, worked for the 2020 U.S. Census, and is the founder and co-director of the UConn chapter of Camp Kesem, an organization supporting children whose parents either have or had cancer.