Tulane Today spoke with five School of Liberal Arts professors about fellowships they were awarded in Spring 2026. Alexis Culotta, Karisma Price, Kyle DeCoste, Allison Grossman and Ilana Horwitz share their thoughts on how these opportunities are furthering their research, the future impacts of their work, and what it means to them to be selected.
Alexis Culotta
Newcomb Department of Art
Alexis Culotta was awarded a fellowship by I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. During the fellowship, she will travel to Florence to expand her scholarship on the frescoed and sgraffitoed facades of homes and other buildings in Renaissance Rome.
Karisma Price
English
Karisma Price has been selected for the inaugural cohort of Writing Freedom Fellows, an initiative supported by the Mellon Foundation and Haymarket Books. The program awards talented emerging and established poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers impacted by the carceral system, recognizing them for their notable and necessary writing.
Price, author of the poetry collection “I’m Always So Serious” and recipient of the 2025 Whiting Award in Poetry, is currently working on her second collection, “The New Book of Knowledge.”
Kyle DeCoste
Newcomb Department of Music
Kyle DeCoste is the inaugural recipient of the Charles Hiroshi Garrett Fellowship from the Society for American Music. The fellowship will support DeCoste and co-author Alex Blue V of McGill University as they complete a forthcoming book on country rap music. DeCoste also plans to bring those discussions into the classroom, helping students better understand U.S. history through music.
Allison Grossman
Political Science
Allison Grossman has been awarded a Sciences Po-Université Paris Cité Fellowship, which supports U.S. scholars pursuing research in Paris. During the semester-long fellowship, she will connect with fellow scholars and policy leaders in Europe while continuing her research on how communities and governments respond to disasters and changing climates.
Ilana Horwitz
Jewish Studies
Ilana Horwitz has been named a 2026 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow. Selected from nearly 500 applicants, Horwitz was one of 25 fellows chosen to receive support for her study following a group of college graduates, whom Horwitz had also studied during their undergraduate years, to examine how their experiences in college shaped their lives after graduation.