2023 Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders

SUPPORT FOR EXCELLENT, EARLY-CAREER PROFESSORS RESHAPING ACADEMIC COMMUNITIES

The Institute for Citizens & Scholars has named 10 scholars as Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders (MEFL) for 2023. 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 an inclusive campus community for underrepresented students and scholars.

The MEFL Award seeks to free the time of junior faculty working toward tenure—including those from underrepresented groups and others committed to eradicating disparities in their fields—so that they can both engage in and build support for systems, networks, and affinity groups that make their fields and campuses more inclusive. Each recipient receives a 12-month stipend of $17,500 while working toward tenure.

The exceptional early-career professors in this year’s class work in fields such as women and gender studies, history, and literature. Awardees’ scholarship focuses on critical issues such as immigration, queer culture, and race. In addition to pioneering research, they also take on additional campus responsibilities like mentoring, serving on advisory councils, working with underrepresented students, and giving additional talks and lectures. (See the full list of Fellows below.)

The 2023 class comes from a diverse and competitive applicant pool. 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 70 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 more inclusive, 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/

2023 Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders

Eladio B. Bobadilla, University of Pittsburgh | History
No More Back Doors: A History of the Immigrants’ Rights Movement

Kelly M. Britt, CUNY Brooklyn College | Anthropology
Sensing the City: Historic Landscapes Empowering Future Communities

Hareem Khan, California State University, San Bernadino | Anthropology Racialized Authenticity: Transnational Aesthetic Practices in the Ethnic Beauty and Wellness Industries

Marci Kwon, Stanford University | Art History
Making Chinatown: Art, Aesthetics, and Asian America

Suzanne Lye, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | Classics
To Starve and To Curse: Women’s Anger in Ancient Greek Literature and Magic

Laura A. Orrico, Temple University | Sociology
On the Edge: Making it Work in the Age of Precarity

Nahir I. Otaño Gracia, University of New Mexico | Literature
Whiteness and the Global North Atlantic in the Middle Ages and the Present

Iván Ramos, Brown University | Literature
Mourning Without Bodies: Queer and Feminist Aesthetics in the Time of Violence

Chris Suh, Emory University | History
Between Korea and America: Diaspora Politics in the Age of Decolonization

Terrell Winder, University of California, Santa Barbara | Sociology
Unspoiled: How Black Gay Youth Transform Racial and Sexual Stigma