2022 Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders

Scholars Committed to Campus Engagement Named

Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders for 2022

The Institute for Citizens & Scholars has named 10 scholars as Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders (MEFL) for 2022. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, the MEFL Awards support junior faculty whose research focuses on contemporary American history, politics, culture, and society, and who are committed to the creation of thriving campus communities for students and faculty.

The MEFL Award seeks to free the time of junior faculty working toward tenure so that they can both engage in and build support systems, professional networks, and scholarly groups that make their academic fields and campuses thrive. Each recipient receives a 12-month stipend of $20,000 while working toward tenure.

The exceptional early-career professors in this year’s class work in fields such as African American studies, sociology, history, and musicology. Awardees’ scholarship focuses on critical issues such as religion, immigration, public policy, and race. In addition to pioneering research, they also take on additional campus responsibilities like mentoring, serving on advisory councils, working with student scholars, and giving additional talks and lectures. (See the full list of Fellows below.)

The 2022 class comes from a competitive applicant pool representing disciplines across the humanities. The final MEFL awardees were selected through an interview process by a selection committee of four former and current university leaders with various academic and research backgrounds.

Established in 2015, the program has now supported more than 60 junior faculty who represent the next generation of leaders and scholars in the humanities and social sciences and who are poised to play a significant role in shaping American higher education. Through their own work to make their fields and institutions reflective of our democracy, they are expanding young people’s understandings and frameworks for active roles in civil society.

For more information about the MEFL Award, eligibility requirements, and the next application cycle, visit https://citizensandscholars.org/fellowships/mefl/

2022 Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders

Emilie Boone | CUNY New York City College of Technology, African American studies

A Nimble Arc: James Van Der Zee and Photography

Melissa Borja | University of Michigan, American culture

Virulent Hate: A Global History of Anti-Asian Racism During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Kevin Escudero | Brown University, American studies

Imperial Unsettling: Indigenous and Immigrant Activism towards Collective Liberation

Cesar Favila | University of California, Los Angeles, musicology

Immaculate Sounds: The Musical Lives of Nuns in New Spain

Daanika Gordon | Tufts University, sociology

Experiences and Perceptions of Policing in a Mixed-Income Housing Development

Leon Hilton | Brown University, theatre arts and performance studies

Feral Performativity: Neurodivergence and Collective Life

Jennifer Mokos | Coastal Carolina University, HTC Honors College

Restoration as Removal: Homelessness, Ecology, and the Struggle for Change

Ianna Hawkins Owen | Boston University, English and African American studies

This Time Without Feeling: Reading Black Asexual Affects

Marc Robinson | California State University, San Bernardino, history

Evergreen Ungawa: The Black Student Union of Seattle, the University of Washington, and Washington State University, 1968 to 1970

Zawadi Rucks-Ahidiana | University at Albany, State University of New York, sociology

The Racialization of Gentrification in the News