Student Successes: Early Fall 2022

September 13, 2022
  • POLS Major Drew Tienken ‘22 (CLAS), a recent graduate of UConn, was one of five UConn students selected as recipients of a grant through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program for the 2022-23 academic year. A native of Wilton (CT), Drew will take his interest in environmentalism and sustainable development to his role as an English teaching assistant in Taiwan. Shankara Narayanan ’21 (CLAS) was named a semifinalist for the program.
  • Tracy Westmoreland ‘18 (CLAS), ‘19 (M.A), an inaugural member of the 5th-year POLS MA program, has been hired as the site coordinator at Yale’s new prison education program in Danbury, Connecticut. It will be the first that serves women prisoners.
  • Ph.D. student Imge Akaslan was awarded a $10,000 Dissertation Writing Fellowship from UConn’s Human Rights Institute.  
  • Ph.D. students Erica McDonald and Lily Luo, joined by Jane Gordon, offered opening remarks and participated in a Student Conference at the Hartford Campus titled “Politics on the Move: CT & Beyond” on April 30, 2022. Students in their classes in Storrs, Hartford and Connecticut College all made presentations as well.
  • POLS majors Aidan Caron ‘24 (CLAS) and Chase Mack ‘23 (CLAS) both won 2022 Summer Undergraduate Research Fund (SURF) Awards. Aidan’s project is entitled “Improving Access to Connecticut Summer Meal Programs with Geographic Information Systems,” while Chase’s project is entitled “How Do Sediment Additions to the Surface of Submerging Saltmarshes Alter Methane Dynamics?” Chase Mack was also named an Honorable Mention selection for the Udall Scholarship, one of just 55 nationally to earn that honor. He is an intern in UConn’s Office of Sustainability, president of EcoHusky, and a resident assistant on campus.
  • POLS Major Geraldine Uribe ‘23 (CLAS) was featured in a April 28, 2022 UConn Today article entitled “First-Generation Students Now Have Special Commencement Tradition.” Geraldine, who is involved in first-generation student initiatives, is contemplating a career in political campaign management. She gained experience last summer and fall by working on the successful campaign of Stamford mayor Caroline Simmons.
  • Geraldine Uribe ‘23 (CLAS), along with POLS Major Samantha Valle ‘24 (CLAS), were chosen as Gilman Scholars in 2022. Since 2001, the Gilman Scholarship program has funded students to study or intern abroad. It encourages travel to diverse locations around the globe, along with intensive language study and internship experiences. Each Gilman Scholar is required to complete a service project upon their return from studying abroad in their campus or home community.
  • Ph.D student Brooks Kirchgassner will be presenting one of his dissertation chapters at the Association of Political Theory Conference next month in Austin, TX. The title of the chapter is “A Revolutionary Education: the Rainbow Coalition and Epistemic Solidarity.”
  • Greg Doukas ‘22 Ph.D. has received a one-year post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Memphis.
  • POLS Major Mehmed Namzi ‘22 (CLAS), a recent graduate of UConn, was interviewed as part of an April 25, 2022 UConn Today article. At the time the article went to press, he was exploring policy analyst, activist, and advocacy jobs. He may also consider law school in a few years. 
  • POLS Major Danielle Cross ‘22 (CLAS), a recent graduate of UConn, has been invited to present a paper based on her Senior Honors Thesis at the annual meeting of the Caribbean Philosophical Association at Michigan State University. Data from her thesis (“Forgotten Immigrant Voices: West Indian Immigrant Experiences and Attitudes towards Contemporary Immigration”) will also be integrated into the archives of the Windsor Historical Society. Shareen Hertel and Jane Gordon mentored the thesis project along with Matt Singer. Danielle Cross was interviewed in UConn Today as well.  
  • This past April, Ph.D. candidate Deng Yinghao successfully defended his dissertation prospectus entitled , “Sinicizing the Nation: the Birth of Minzu (民族, Nationality) and the Question of anti-Manchu Revolution.”
  • Ph.D. student Bianka Adamatti recently won the outstanding thesis award in art and humanities from the College of Graduate and Continuing Studies at Eastern Tennessee State University. The title of her thesis was “The Tangled Roots of the Holocaust: An Analysis of the Evolution of Colonial Discourse through the Prohibition of Sexual Relations and Marriages between Races.”