Exceptional works of art, literature, and scholarship from our liberal arts community receive recognition on the global stage.
SUMMER 2025
Linda Pollock, a historian of modern England, has been named the inaugural Mouton and Leatrice Bickham Memorial Chair in European History, a position established earlier this year thanks to a bequest from the estate of Gaylord Bickham (A&S ‘56). Pollock, a historian of early modern England, calls the position an incredible honor, and an exciting moment for the field of European History at Tulane.
Fan Zhang, assistant professor of Art, has won a $49,795 Award to Louisiana Artists and Scholars (ATLAS) to support her book project on immigrant populations in fifth-century China. Using the mortuary art and artifacts of over 300 excavated burials as her source material, Zhang examines the construction of identity of lesser-studied populations, such as women, eunuchs, artists, and ethnic minorities, through an art history lens. The selection committee praised Zhang’s work as a unique and major contribution to the field.
Assistant Professor of English Ladee Hubbard, author of The Rib King and other works of fiction, has received a $48,640 ATLAS grant to complete her latest novel exploring the “hypervisibility/invisibility” of Black women in contemporary U.S. society. The novel explores the issue of Black female representation in the American popular imaginary from an innovative perspective, with less emphasis on how Black women are seen and more on “Black womanhood as a way of seeing.” Hubbard, a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, won the 2018 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence for her first novel The Talented Ribkins; The Rib King, her second novel, was named one of Time magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of 2021.
Yasmina Aidi, an assistant professor in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese and Middle East & North African (MENA) Studies, was awarded a $50,000 ATLAS grant to complete her biography on a largely forgotten Moroccan storyteller and the cultural impact of his oral works. Aidi uses this story to explore the international zone of artistic exchange that connected Tangier to New Orleans and to the major literary scene in the U.S. South. Her work-in-progress is praised for its strong intercultural and interdisciplinary components, and for amplifying North African voices and preserving oral history and its culture.
Daylín Pujol López, a PhD candidate in History, was awarded an American Dissertation Fellowship from the American Association of University Women in the amount of $25,000. Award recipients for the fellowship include women from all fields who demonstrate an exceptional combination of scholarly excellence, original research, and a commitment to helping women and girls. López studies the intersections of race and gender in Latin America and the Caribbean during the 19th century.
Darcy Roake, a PhD candidate in History, has been awarded a Chateaubriand Fellowship from the Embassy of France in the United States. Chateaubriand Fellowships are awarded to outstanding PhD students from US institutions, and support fieldwork related to France through fellowships spent in the country. Roake’s scholarship focuses on reproductive health, rights, and justice movements.
The Digital Media Practices (DMP) Program has received a 3-year, $700,000 grant from the Louisiana Entertainment Development Fund. The grant will upgrade and expand the program’s cinema equipment, and will also support DMP service-learning initiative courses like “The Independent Film Ecosystem in New Orleans,” connecting Tulane students to the vibrant independent film landscape of New Orleans through collaborative partnerships with six local organizations, and “Digital Media for Community Health and Well-being,” allowing students to produce short documentaries and PSAs about local non-profits. The grant coincides with the program’s move to expanded facilities in the newly renovated Newcomb Hall.
The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) awarded a $140,747 grant to the Department of Economics for their study "Parent’s Choice or School’s Choice? Discrimination Against Students in Admission to Private, Charter, and Traditional Public Schools." The study, led by Associate Professor Patrick Button and Economics Department Chair and Professor Doug Harris, with post-doctoral scholar Hussain Hadah and PhD candidate Barb Lundebjerg, will study discrimination in access to K-12 education nationwide in the US. The study aims to determine to what extent private schools, compared to public and charter schools, discriminate in the admissions process by providing different information or support to families of different backgrounds who are seeking to enroll their children.
Nghana Lewis, current professor of English and Africana Studies and Tulane alumna, was recently honored by the Newcomb Alumnae Association. Lewis, who is also an adjunct professor with the Department of Philosophy, faculty affiliate of the School of Law, and state district judge with Louisiana’s 40th Judicial District Court, received the 2025 Newcomb Alumnae Association Outstanding Alumna award for her outstanding professional success and commitment to public service.
Nelle Kulick, a doctoral candidate in Anthropology, has just been awarded a highly prestigious National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant. Kulick’s doctoral dissertation project studies the behavioral and hormonal responses to acute environmental changes in wild capuchin monkeys, as a way to examine how gene-environment interactions mediate health and reproductive fitness. The project advances fundamental understanding of adaptive processes and supports student training in biotechnological methods and public science engagement. She is one of two students in the School of Liberal Arts who has received this award.
Recent Anthropology PhD graduate Michelle Pigott presented her paper "Time and Indigenous Engagements with European Colonialism in Southeastern North America," co-authored by Anthropology Professor Chris Rodning and Anthropology PhD candidate Emily Clark, at an Amerind Advanced Seminar hosted by the Amerind Foundation in Dragoon, Arizona, in August 2025. The seminar, entitled "Retelling Time in Indigenous-Colonial Interactions across North America," brought archaeologists from across North America together to present and discuss bringing Indigenous perspectives about time to the archaeology of Indigenous engagements with European colonists in the Americas. Presentations will be considered for publication by the University of Arizona Press in its Amerind seminar series.
Jewish Studies Senior Professor of Practice Jason Gaines was named Gay Man of the Year at the 35th Annual Gay Appreciation Awards, presented by Ambush Magazine. Gaines also serves as co-chair of Jewish Pride New Orleans (JPNOLA), a Jewish-LGBTQ advocacy non-profit.
MAY 2025
Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Nathaniel Rich has been named a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow, a tremendous honor and achievement for any scholar. Guggenheim Fellows are awarded generous monetary prizes in support of their future work and “under the freest possible conditions.” Rich joins the fellowship’s 100th class, a selection of 198 exceptional artists and scholars across 53 fields, as the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation celebrates its centennial year and a century of influence on American intellectual and cultural life. Rich’s topics include climate writing, social justice, and environmental journalism. He is also a New York Times Magazine contributing writer and author of several books, including two previous works of nonfiction with environmental themes, Second Nature and Losing Earth. The fellowship will support Rich’s next work of nonfiction, a book about the life and work of the climate economist Martin Weitzman.
The album SYMPHONIC STRADIVARIUS, featuring Newcomb Department of Music Professor Barbara Jazwinski's composition Beyond the Sunset, was selected as the Gold Medal Winner in the 2025 Global Music Awards. The album was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Miran Vaupotić, with Davide Alogna as violin soloist.
Tara Yanez, Ph.D. Candidate in the Stone Center for Latin American Studies and a 2024–2025 Graduate Fellow at the Murphy Institute Center for Ethics, will receive a 2025 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship of $31,000 to support focused writing of her dissertation, “Women-Led Strategies of Security and Justice in Latin American Urban Peripheries.” She was awarded this honor based on her scholarly ability and the dissertation’s potential as a significant contribution to the study of religion, ethics, morals, or values. Out of a pool of 600 applicants, Tara was among 20 fellows to receive this award.
Recent graduate Amelia Rich (SLA ’24) has won several awards for “Kindred Spirits,” a short film she wrote and produced at Tulane for her capstone project as a Digital Media Practices Coordinate Major. The film has received awards at the UCLA International Shorttakes Festival (Best Writing Award); Worldwide Women's Film Festival Best Shorts Competition (Award of Excellence, Award of Merit Special Mention); and The IndieFEST Film Awards (Award of Merit Special Mention x2).
Four School of Liberal Arts faculty will receive 2025-26 academic year residences at the Tulane Bywater Institute’s A Studio in The Woods. Faculty members include Associate Professor of French Fayçal Falaky, Assistant Professor of Communication Muira McCammon, Associate Professor of Theatre Jenny Mercein, and Assistant Professor of Political Science Rachel Schoner.
Associate Professor of French Jonathan Morton has been selected for a Tulane University Georges Lurcy Affiliated Fellowship at the American Academy of Rome. Morton will attend a 4-week residency in the 2025‐26 academic year while working on his project, “Engines of Invention: Thinking Machines in the High Middle Ages.” The fellowship is funded by the Georges Lurcy Fund for Research and Creative Artistic Projects.
APRIL 2025
Assistant Professor of English Karisma Price has won the 2025 Whiting Award in Poetry, one of the most prestigious prizes recognizing emerging writers in the United States. Whiting Awards are presented annually to 10 exceptional emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama. Each winner receives $50,000 in recognition of early accomplishment and the promise of outstanding future work.
The selection committee writes about Price and her work, “The poems of Karisma Price are songs, howls, portraits, critiques; they move nimbly between the narrative and the lyric. Price bends form and time, bringing together unexpected interlocutors to make sense of what cannot make sense — but the effort is sanctifying. Her architecture surprises; full of rhythm and light, it houses steady compassion alongside flashes of violence. The reader feels the necessity of the work and, held by Price, rises to meet it.”
A native New Orleanian, Price is a poet, screenwriter, media artist, and the author of the debut collection I’m Always So Serious (Sarabande Books, 2023), a New York Times Editor’s Choice.
Anthropology Professor Christopher B. Rodning has received the 2025 Presidential Recognition Award for service to the Society for American Archaeology (SSA). The award recognizes Rodning’s work as a “highly responsive, effective, and forward-thinking” editor of the SAA Archaeological Record, which he has been editing since 2019; as the successful book review editor of American Antiquity since 2018; and as co-organizer of the President's Forum at SAA 2024; among other roles. The award will be presented at SSA's annual meeting in Denver at the end of April.
Assistant Professor of Economics Patrick Testa is the recipient of two highly competitive grants for his study entitled: “The Geography of Race and Ethnicity in the United States: Uncovering a Hidden History of Expulsion and Exclusion.” Patrick and co-authors won a National Science Foundation (NSF) and a Russell Sage Foundation (RSF) grant. The funding will support their research using cutting-edge techniques from large language models to identify episodes of local forced migration in U.S. history, between 1850 and 1950, including the individuals and groups affected by them.
French Professor Fayçal Falaky will join the National Humanities Center 2025 Residency, a program designed to provide scholarly resources and promote the knowledge and deeper understanding in all areas of the humanities. Falaky is a specialist in 18th-century French literature, culture, and politics.
Karrie Gaspard-Hogewood has won the 2025 Wilbur Award of Merit by the Religion Communicators Council for the podcast "Spirit & Power: Charismatics & Politics in American Life.” Gaspard-Hogewood is a Sociology Doctoral Fellow and Social Policy Adjunct Professor.
Lindsey Cliff (SLA ‘25), a fourth-year Honors student, has been selected to participate in the Spring Research Symposium at the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia at NYU — an honor granted to only 19 undergraduate students nationwide. As a double major in International Relations and Political Economy with a minor in Russian, Cliff will present her research on how Russian-led organizations shape narratives about the post-Soviet region, often marginalizing the voices of non-Russian communities.
Newcomb Dance Company members Madeline Lorio (SLA ‘25) and Amalia Nájera (SLA ‘25) performed their original piece Tethered at the American College Dance Association Mid-Atlantic Conference in March and were one of three pieces selected to be performed at the ACDA’s National College Dance Festival in May. This is the first time the high honor has been awarded to Tulane University dancers.
MARCH 2025
Exceptional works of art, literature, and scholarship from our Liberal Arts community receive recognition on the global stage.
Brandon Davis, an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and the Murphy Institute, has received a $50,000 Institute for Human Studies Faculty Fellowship. Davis’ research focuses on American and Race politics and normative and empirical approaches to institutions, representation, and criminal justice. This sabbatical funding goes towards his project, Audemus Jura Nostra Defendere: We Dare Defend Our Rights Strategic Legal Mobilization and the Alabama Democratic Conference.
The Renaissance Society of America recently awarded Professor of Practice Alexis Culotta a 2025 RSA-Samuel H. Kress Research Fellowship in Renaissance Art History. One of only a few recipients for this highly competitive award, Culotta will use this fellowship to continue work on data collection and curation with a focus on work of artists active between the 16th and 17th centuries in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. This work is in relation to her larger digital humanities initiative to build the Artistic Network Toolkit (ANT) with Co-PI (and fellow Tulane faculty member) Aron Culotta and their research team.
Fan Zhang, assistant professor in the Newcomb Art Department & Asian Studies Program, has been awarded a Mellon Fellowship for Assistant Professors from the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS). With support form the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the School of Historical Studies at the IAS chooses three assistant professors per year to welcome as members to the institution and to grant a $40,000 stipend in support of their scholarly work. The fellowship was awarded for Zhang’s research project, A Center on the Border: Migrations, Identities, and Cross-Cultural Encounters in Fifth-Century North China, on the understudied scholarship of 5th century Chinese art.
A film by New Orleans-based stage director Natasha Ramer, with editing and cinematography by Department of Theatre & Dance Professor Antony Sandoval, and starring Tulane Theatre alum Erin Cessna, has been sweeping the festival circuit, winning awards and garnering glowing reviews. Oleksandra Basco’s A Non Fiction War adapts the real-time war diary of the Ukrainian writer into theatrical script for the stage and screen. It won 2024 Best Experimental Film at the London Women Film Festival, Berlin Women Film Festival, Santa Barbara International Movie Awards, Los Angeles Movie & Music Video Awards, and received many other awards.
Cheryl Narumi Naruse, an associate professor of English, received the 2025 Outstanding Achievement Book Award by the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) for her book Becoming Global Asia: Contemporary Genres of Postcolonial Capitalism in Singapore. Winner in the Literary Studies category, Naruse’s work explores the “soft power” and cultural capital of neoimperialist Singapore through a literary lens, as she examines the work in genres like literary anthologies, coming-of-career narratives, and princess fantasies. This is her first book.
Belinda Andrews-Smith, former Musical Theatre director and visiting assistant professor in the Theatre and Dance Department, won the 2024 American Prize in the Musical/Theatre division, for stage directing her production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. A musical theatre adaptation of Dickens’ last and unfinished work, Andrews-Smith staged the play in the 2023 theatre season while at Tulane.
A composition by Music Professor Barbara Jazwinski has recently been selected by the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) for performance at the ISCM World New Music Days 2025 in Portugal. Jazwinski serves as the head of the Composition Program for the Newcomb Department of Music and is an internationally-recognized performer, conductor, and promoter of contemporary music. Her composition Soliloquy was chosen by an international jury, including composers and conductors from 18 countries. ICSM consists of members from more than 60 organizations in over 50 countries, and has been promoting and advancing contemporary music since 1922. This year’s festival will take place at the end of May in Lisbon and Porto.
AJ Golio, a doctoral candidate of Sociology in the City, Culture, and Community Program, received the 2025 Best Article in the Journal of Race, Ethnicity and the City Award for his paper ”What makes gentrification ‘white’? Theorizing the mutual construction of whiteness and gentrification in the urban US.” The annual award was selected from an array of international articles published in Volume 4 (2023) and Volume 5 (2024) of the journal, and the award recognizes an article for its particularly outstanding contribution to the field of urban affairs.
Nick Chapoy, PhD candidate in Biological Anthropology, along with Kathy Jack, professor of Anthropology and associate dean for Research and Graduate Programs, have been awarded a $30,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for Doctoral Dissertation Research: Vocal Communication and Dominance Rank in a Non-Human Primate. The doctoral research project combines behavioral observations, acoustic analyses, and hormone assays to asses the link between vocal communication, hormone levels, and social rank in non-human primates. Prior to joining the PhD program, Chapoy served as a field assistant for the Santa Rosa Primate Project, a long-term research site co-directed by Jack on the northwest coast of Costa Rica.