Current Fellows

Vernon is a senior majoring in Anthropology and Sociology with a minor in Asian American Studies. As a diasporic Filipino student, they have been closely involved with the Asian American Studies program, both as a member of the ASAM Undergraduate Advisory Board, a student body responsible for coordinating ASAM programming and communicating between faculty and students, and as an ASAM Fellow. Vernon is a current Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow and the undergraduate coordinator of the Southeast Asia Working Group, also holding board positions in the Penn Philippine Association and Queer People of Color. Their research concerns the roles of Indigenous Filipinos and other collaborating and conflicting actors in the construction of ancestral domain claims and Indigenous material conditions. Vernon intends to pursue a graduate degree in Anthropology or Southeast Asia Studies.

Logan (he/him), a junior, is a student of art history, nested in the dialogue between art & continental philosophy, committed to thinking about captive/racialized subjects’ relationships to the aesthetic — terror, experimentation, and sovereignty —  in the wake of dispossesions and performativities generated by the post/colonial-capitalist sensory economies of the Americas.

Amanda is a current sophomore majoring in the History of Art and minoring in Latin American and Latinx Studies. Her research revolves around the visual cultures of Mexican American communities in the American southwest where she poses questions about the political context of art movements after the modern era, with interests in Mexican Muralism, Agit-Prop, and contemporary Latinx artmaking to be specific. Outside of research, Amanda also involves herself with activities and organizations that facilitate closer connections between the education of Art/Art history and marginalized groups. In her spare time, she works at the front desk of the History of Art department at Penn, is an Outreach council member for the Barnes Foundation, and enjoys creating illustrations.

Charissa is a sophomore studying English and minoring in Africana Studies. Her research explores the formation of multiracial identity within Black America, and how (or whether) it has evolved as the population of multiracial people in America soars. She is interested in placing the current experiences of mixed-race students with Black ancestry in conversation with an analysis of the tragic mulatta trope as employed in US literature and film from the 19th century to the present. Through her research, Charissa hopes to illuminate the use of fetishization and exotification as vehicles of division, exploring their origins as well as their historical and contemporary impacts on the sentiment of belonging.  At Penn, Charissa is also a Civic Scholar, and enjoys singing with her a cappella group and giving tours with the Kite and Key society.

Adeoluwa is a junior studying Communication, with a concentration in Culture and Society, and Africana Studies, with a concentration in African American studies. For her thesis, she is researching West African representation in Black American popular culture. Inspired by sociologist Stuart Hall, Adeoluwa is interested in how popular culture defines Blackness and how the landscape of Black media has changed as a result of the rise of Black immigrants in the United States. Adeoluwa is interested in how first-generation Americans use media to assimilate and acculturate into what it means to be Black in America. With her research, she desires to highlight the multidimensionality of Black identity and culture—asserting that Blackness is not a monolith. Adeoluwa sees her work as necessary in contributing towards literature on first-generation identity and discourse on the nuances of cultural assimilation into the United States. Adeoluwa is a research assistant for the Africana Studies Department and the 2022 recipient of the Buchi Emecheta Prize in Africana Studies. At Penn, Adeoluwa is co-editor-in-chief of Faces of Black Penn and serves on the board of Shea Collective. She is also a member of the Cultural Resource Center Redesign committee, a member of the Social Planning and Events Committee To Represent Undergraduate Minorities, and the Social Action Chair of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated.

Maira (She/Her) is a fourth-year majoring in Medical Anthropology and Global Health. She is interested in the intersection of mental health and social media, particularly in regards to the role aesthetics and vulnerability play in how online content is digested. Furthermore, she plans to study the impact these factors have on the experiences of young women of color utilizing social media therapy and how it differs from their experiences with professionals. Her other interests include cultural differences in how illness is understood, technology & society and environmental justice. At Penn, she is a Benjamin Franklin scholar, a Mayor’s scholar and the Co-President of the Anthropology UAB.

Angel is a junior studying Anthropology and minoring in Latin American and Latinx Studies. Their research revolves around the politics and philosophy of land in Mexico. Questions central to their research are: What relations & sensations arise in our interactions with the land and its forests? How have recent decades of deforestation and centuries of uneven property relations warped consciousness of the forests and land? They hope to form not merely a descriptive understanding of the phenomena of deforestation and the dominant classes’ management of land but of how these processes are changing and how this changing demands a particular kind of response in order to protect the land and its forests. Angel is a CAMRA Mellon Fellow, Chair of the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies Undergraduate Advisory Board Chair, La Casa Latina Program Assistant, and is on the planning committee for CAMRA’s (Collective for Advancing Multimodal Research Arts) annual Screening Scholarship Media Festival. Angel also engages in artistic practice using lens-based work and performance, notably voguing and pole-dancing.