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Axinn Center for the Humanities

Mellon Student Research

Through the Mellon Humanities For All Times grant, Middlebury College is providing fifteen Student Research Fellowships, five each year. Supervised by a faculty sponsor, students are working on researching and writing on topics about migrant justice. 

Group Photo of students working on Mellon Foundation Humanities for All Times Migrant Justice

Student Research Fellowships

Sajia Yaqouby, Maya Watson, Citlali Lopez, and Celia Barabanov (not pictured) received research grants to write senior theses focused on migration. They gathered with the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Catey Boyle, and two of the Mellon Grant’s Principal Investigators, Ian Barrow and Marion Wells, to discuss their research over lunch in October 2024.

Student thesis writers pose outside the Humanities House with Mellon PIs Professor Marion Wells and Professor Ian Barrow
Student thesis writers pose outside the Humanities House with Mellon PIs Professor Marion Wells and Professor Ian Barrow

Middlebury Spring Student Symposium - April 2025

The Spring Student Symposium is an all-campus event that provides students an opportunity to showcase their academic projects to a campus-wide audience in a professional conference setting. Mellon Student Fellows presented innovative community-based research on migration, identity, and belonging among members of the Afghan and Latinx migrant communities in Vermont, as well as historical research on migration and identity in 20th-century Kazakhstan. Their research was made possible through the generous support of the Mellon Foundation’s Humanities For All Times initiative, and Middlebury’s Axinn Center for the Humanities (through the Mellon-funded project “Migrant Justice in Vermont and Beyond”).

Sajia Yaqouby ’25.5 presents her research on art, identity, and belonging among Afghan refugee communities in Vermont.
Sajia Yaqouby ’25.5 presents her research on art, identity, and belonging among Afghan refugee communities in Vermont. Sajia was supervised by Prof. Sarah Rogers in the Department of History of Art and Architecture.
Celia Barabanov ’26 presents her Mellon project, entitled "Going to School on Migrant Mothers’ Experience in Addison County Public Schools"
Celia Barabanov ’26 presents her Mellon project, entitled “Going to School on Migrant Mothers’ Experience in Addison County Public Schools.” Her research was supervised by Prof. Ian Barrow, co-PI on the Mellon-funded “Migrant Justice in Vermont and Beyond” initiative and professor in the History Department.
Maya Watson ’25 presents her Mellon-funded senior thesis, entitled "The Virgin Lands Decade: Migration and Identity in Kazakhstan from 1954-1964"
Maya Watson ’25 presents her Mellon-funded senior thesis, entitled “The Virgin Lands Decade: Migration and Identity in Kazakhstan from 1954-1964.” Her research was supervised by Prof. Rebecca Mitchell in the History Department.

Axinn Center for the Humanities

Axinn Center at Starr Library
Middlebury College
Middlebury, VT 05753