Eight Students Awarded Kellogg Fellowships
Middlebury College has awarded Kellogg Fellowships to eight students in support of senior capstone projects focused on the humanities and areas of humanistic inquiry. Fellows receive $5,000 for travel and research expenses for projects that begin this summer and continue over the coming year.
“The Kellogg Fellowship offers students in the humanities an amazing opportunity to pursue in-depth independent research around the world,” said Lisa Gates, associate dean for fellowships and research. “Whether they are conducting archival research, attending conferences, working with experienced scholars, or immersing themselves in communities connected to their work, the fellowship’s generous financial support allows for a deep level of engagement that results in exceptional scholarship and creative work.”
The Kellogg Fellowship is administered by Middlebury College through its Undergraduate Research Office. A selection committee composed of the associate dean for fellowships and research and faculty members drawn from different disciplines reviews student applications and selects fellows each spring.
Following is a list of this year’s fellows with descriptions of their projects:
Nicea Armstrong ’27, a history major with a minor in global health, will use her award to study how the phrase “Forever Wild,” used to describe Adirondack Park—often interpreted as an apolitical conservation ideal—has enabled generations of elite white Adirondackers to “reorganize power according to the needs and demands of American empire.” For her project, “‘Wild’ Identity: Returning to Empire in the Adirondacks,” she will draw on historical and contemporary scholarship arguing that the mythologized landscape has functioned as a carefully managed political space. “By questioning the architecture, decorative ‘Indian’ motifs, ‘Great Camp’ rituals, and the outdoor, literary, and visual traditions of the region, I will interpret the meaning of territorial control and political structures of a landscape through human representation, meaning, and belief,” writes Armstrong, whose faculty advisor is Kathryn Morse, John C. Elder Professor of Environmental Studies and professor of history. Her research will draw on archival, legal, municipal, and journalistic sources, along with oral accounts, to analyze social and cultural change within the broader history of power and governance in the region. “I will attempt to answer why powerful American figureheads have chosen the Adirondacks as a site of retreat and exchange of political and social capital, as this project theorizes about the relationship between 20th-century leisure trends, conservation policies and justifications, and wilderness ideology.”
Guler Aycicek ’27, a double major in political science and mathematics, will use the award to support “Internal Colonialism and the Politics of Historical Narration: Kurdish Memory and the Formation of the Turkish Nation-State.” The project examines how Kurdish political writings narrate the formation and consolidation of the Turkish Republic and whether internal colonialism provides a useful analytical framework for understanding these narratives. “Ultimately, this study does not begin with a predetermined verdict,” writes Aycicek, who grew up in southeastern Turkey (North Kurdistan). “Instead, it asks how competing historical narratives construct different visions of political belonging and whether the concept of internal colonialism clarifies or obscures those differences.” The project analyzes Kurdish political writings—including memoirs, essays, historical reflections, newspapers, and political treatises—as works of political thought, focusing on language, metaphor, framing, and changing vocabulary over time. It also examines how different generations of Kurdish writers interpret the early decades of the Turkish Republic and use concepts including brotherhood, betrayal, autonomy, sovereignty, and resistance. “This project allows me to return to the questions that initially motivated my academic journey, now equipped with the tools to study them responsibly rather than reactively,” writes Aycicek, whose advisor is Sebnem Gumuscu, associate professor of political science. “It marks not just the end of my undergraduate education, but the beginning of a more serious scholarly engagement with the region and themes that have shaped my life.”
Sofia Beroy ’27, a double major in art history and English, will work on a project titled “Artistic Spaces and Practices during Spain’s Dictatorship,” examining how artists responded to repression under Francisco Franco from 1939 to 1975. “When one thinks of Modernism, Spain is left out of the conversation primarily because of its oppressive dictatorship occurring during the movement,” writes Beroy. She plans to study how artists, collectives, museum owners, and cultural figures like Francisco Zóbel and Juana Mordó found ways to create spaces for artists to express radical ideas through manifestos, text-based pieces, and abstract art that spoke directly to the dictatorship in Spain. “I am interested in where these artistic communities were situated and how they, and art, functioned under oppression,” writes Beroy, who will work with Edward Vazquez, professor of history of art and architectural studies, as her primary project advisor. “These institutions, collectives, and artists have been underrecognized in the greater art world and within Spain’s understanding of their own artistic history.” Fluent in Spanish and French, Beroy plans to conduct research in both languages, while also relying on courses taken in Spain focused on the art museums of Madrid and Spanish artists prior to 1881.
Liana Fitzgerald ’27, a double major in anthropology and music, plans to study and recreate ancient Maya music by examining the traditional use and history of Maya flutes and aerophones, such as ocarinas. She plans to reconstruct a Maya flute or other aerophone to understand how it functions while also exploring how applying Western music notation to non-Western cultures is inherently colonial. “My study aims to reveal how ancient Maya flutes and aerophones sounded, were constructed, and used,” writes Fitzgerald. “This ‘uncovering’ of ancient Maya music will also provide insight into its cultural importance.” Her project, “Uncovering Ancient Maya Music,” builds on research she began in 2025 at the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project (BVAR) in central Belize, where she conducted excavations, processed artifacts, recorded field notes, and participated in laboratory sessions. She plans to return to BVAR to focus on Maya music by studying artifacts, such as excavated ceramics, to better understand how they are made into musical instruments. She will work with faculty advisors James Fitzsimmons, professor of anthropology, and Jeff Buettner, Christian A. Johnson Professor of Music and director of choral activities. “My goal by the end of the winter term will be to have at least one playable flute and aerophone. During the spring, my focus will then shift to understanding how to play the flute and what it would have sounded like.”
Olivia Jessen ’27, a double major in comparative literature and Arabic, will conduct research on the social divide between Jordanian citizens of East Bank origin and Jordanian citizens of Palestinian descent. Drawing on Hisham Bustani’s short story, “Faisaly and Wehdat,” which describes the divide as a “deep fault-line running through (Jordanian) society,” Jessen plans to examine the history of the “fault line” and how literary works can reinforce it. She will explore how literature reflects and shapes that divide, how it is expressed in Amman—a city shaped by multiple diasporas—and how writers have responded to the city’s changing social and political landscape as its population has grown through voluntary and forced migration over the past 80 years. To better understand Amman’s social “fault lines” through literature, Jessen will trace the city’s literary history from authors writing about the 1948 Nakba to contemporary writers, whom she will interview for her project, “Splitting the Seven Hills: Authors Along Amman’s Social ‘Fault Lines.’” “I hope to understand through this project how literature of place, long known for its importance in Arabic and specifically Palestinian literature, parses Amman and its changes, and how Ammani writers respond to their city, what they are trying to understand, and what they are trying to convey,” writes Jessen, who will work with advisor Dima Ayoub, associate professor of Arabic.
Abeera Riaz ’27, a double major in Arabic and history of art, will examine the work of Arab photographers Yto Barrada, whose photography explores colonial legacies, movement, and political autonomy, and Lalla Essaydi, who examines the female Muslim body and reclaims Orientalist imagery. She will compare their work with the foundational theories of Algerian poet and critic Malek Alloula, who examined the French exploitation of women through sexualization and photographic voyeurism during the colonial period. “I will write about the role of the Arab woman as the photographer and the subject, closing the distance between ‘us’ and ‘other’ that dominated previous narratives,” writes Riaz. “The main question I want to explore through Barrada and Essaydi’s work is the contemporary artistic confrontation on the lasting impact of French [neo]colonialism in West Asia and North Africa, with specific regard to the Maghreb region.” Riaz will also explore how the two Moroccan photographers counter Orientalist depictions of Arab women through their work and the role diaspora plays in their portrayal of cultural identity and movement. She will conduct research for her project, “Visual Decolonization: Contemporary Arab Female Photographers and the Gendered Orientalist Gaze,” by examining archival photography and contemporary art through literary, visual, and observational analysis. “I want to center social critical theory emerging in the Global South with art as a decolonial practice, focusing on artistic expression and the human condition amidst/despite neocolonialism,” writes Riaz, whose advisor is Sarah Rogers, visiting assistant professor of history of art and architectural studies.
Ruby Salisbury ’27, an environmental studies major with a minor in Spanish, plans to conduct research and interviews in South America for a series of nonfiction essays about the Ashaninka people and their battle to protect the headwaters of their territory. “By bringing to light the stories of these invaluable Indigenous communities endangered by encroaching logging and development, I hope to help their voices be heard on a global scale,” writes Salisbury. For her project, “The Road vs. The River: The Ashaninka People of the Amazon and Their Battle to Protect Their Headwaters,” she will join her father, David Salisbury ’93, at the 11th meeting of the Transboundary Commission—a network of Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities and organizations working along the Brazil–Peru border to defend the region. At the meeting, the Ashaninka will decide which stories to share about the threats facing their waters, land, and culture. They will also choose a village and host families for Salisbury to live with for up to two months while learning about their way of life. “I hope to learn from the long-held oral storytelling tradition in Ashaninka communities and develop a greater understanding of their homeland,” writes Salisbury, who will rely on her college courses in environmental studies, creative writing, and Spanish throughout the project. Her advisor is Spring Ulmer, assistant professor of English.
Axis Zhang ’27, an independent scholar and visiting student at New York University, plans to investigate and document understudied aspects of Mongolian syntax (how words combine into sentences) and phonology (the sound patterns of the language) through fieldwork and formal analysis. Growing up as a Han Chinese in Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, Zhang became fascinated by his hometown’s rich linguistic and cultural landscape, where multiple varieties of Chinese and Mongolian are spoken and street signs are bilingual. In recent years, however, government policies that once promoted Mongolian have been rolled back: bilingual signage is no longer mandatory, Mongolian schools now teach entirely in Chinese, and Mongolian has been removed from national exams. “Witnessing these assimilationist policies and the erosion of minority language has motivated me to apply my linguistic training to documenting and preserving Mongolian,” writes Zhang. For his project, “Dative Case Assignment, ‘Say’ Complementation, and Vowel Epenthesis in Mongolian,” Zhang will investigate how Mongolian assigns certain grammatical markers to nouns and whether the word “say” functions as a verb or a grammatical connector similar to the English word “that,” to better understand how sentence structure works across languages. To support his research, Zhang will attend conferences and summer programs to strengthen his training in linguistic theory and fieldwork methods, conduct fieldwork in Inner Mongolia, and analyze the collected data as part of his senior thesis. His advisor is Usama Soltan, Surdna Professor of Linguistics and Arabic.
For more information, visit the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Research.