Current Fellows
CLASS OF 2025
Xavier Amaro
History
Xavier is a first-generation Chicano from North Carolina in his sophomore year at Columbia University. His primary research interest is in the formation of anti-colonial Chicano nationalism and how it interacts with gender and sexuality, the family, capitalism/neoliberalism, and the State. Xavier is especially interested in marrying his research interests to the new Chicano borderlands in El Nuevo South.
Asher Baron
Sociology
Asher Baron (they/them) is a sophomore at Columbia College studying Sociology and Public Health. They are deeply interested in the construction of the category of the transgender child, its dependence upon historical and ongoing medical racism, and the maintenance of this category today as a means for suppressing bodily autonomy. Through their research, they hope to advocate for transgender children as a population deserving of study and explore the consequences of the emergence of new social categories.
Korrin Lee
Ethnicity & Race Studies
Korrinn is a first-generation, low-income Latin student majoring in Ethnicity and Race Studies with a concentration in computer science. Korinn is interested in examining the ways in which online spaces create and maintain dominant modes of thinking in regard to gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity, as well as how cultural diffusion and appropriation come as a result.
Renee Morales
English
Renee Morales is an English Literature and Creative Writing student from Miami, Florida, interested in researching the cultural and linguistic biases that favor the English novel in the discourse surrounding global literature. As a bilingual Cuban-American, she hopes to use her research to liberate the English language from a Eurocentric Western canon that suppresses people of color in their effort to repurpose English. Examining the role of translation as a genre, Renee will work towards positioning English as a tool of empowerment for writers of color, ostracized for their distance from the English language.
Colin Roedl
Urban Studies
Inspired by his life as a military brat, Colin is a Columbia College student passionate about broadening the horizons of public discourse through traditional and avant-garde modes of engagement. When he's not writing and editing Op-eds for the Columbia Daily Spectator, you can find him recording the stage of New York with his camcorder or speaking about his latest endeavor, "Afro-Assemblage."
CLASS OF 2026
Nicholas Brown
African-American and African Diaspora Studies; Sociology
Nicholas (he/him/his) is a community organizer and sophomore at Columbia College studying African American Studies and Sociology. His work interests include advocacy and scholarship centered in prison abolition, Black queer history and rights, and education reform. He is currently working as a research assistant in the Columbia Institute for Research in African American Studies.
Breanna Ellison
English; Creative Writing
Breanna is a life-long learner and creative, who, when not in dance rehearsal or listening to music, can be found working in the library, reading a book, or planning in her journal. She is an aspiring author and professor impassioned by the power of literature to capture the complexities of human experience. She is excited to explore literature as a form of personal artifact in conversation with social and historical changes.
Naomi Flowers
Political Science; African-American and African Diaspora Studies
Naomi Flowers, raised in Avignon, France and Orlando, Florida, is a second-year Kluge Scholar at Columbia University studying Political Science and African-American and African Diaspora Studies. She is particularly interested in scholarship in American politics, liberation studies, racialized space and capitalism, the Black francophone diaspora, and social movements. Alongside academia, Naomi enjoys community organizing, running, djing, and traveling.
Josiah Keys
African-American and African Diaspora Studies
Josiah is an undergraduate student majoring in African-American Studies with a concentration in History/Sociology. His research and personal interests are centered around Queer & Trans Black Political and Performance History, The role of race in the U.S Carceral/Policing system, The history of Voter Suppression laws, and Black Radical Political Thought and Movements. Josiah aims to pursue a PhD and become a professor specializing in African-American Studies, particularly in Black Queer Studies.
Ari X
Ethnicity and Race Studies; English
Ari is a Chinese American student from Indiana and is studying Ethnicity & Race along with English Literature. Ari is interested in music as a method of survival within/beyond racial capitalism, and they are particularly interested in music as a form of coalition-building across borders, genres, and other demarcations of distance. Outside of school, Ari enjoys rock climbing, folk & country music, and programming for WKCR.
MMUF Alumni
CLASS OF 2024
- Eli Andrade
English - Hoda Elsharkawy
Middle Eastern Studies; Political Science - Roberta Hannah
African American and African Diaspora Studies; Psychology - Dale Mcenany
Education Studies; Sociology - Kennedy Winslow
Urban Studies
CLASS OF 2023
- Elizabeth Clarke
Classics; Post Colonial Studies - Runnie Exuma
Comparative Literature & Society - Sebastian Preising
Political Science; Mathematics - Harry Foster
English; Creative Writing - Astrid Liden
Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Class of 2022
- Jaala Alston
Ethnicity and Race Studies; Economics - Diogene Artiles
Comparative Literature & Society - Tyler Campbell
African-American Studies; Creative Writing - Ariana Orozco
Ethnicity and Race Studies; Medicine, Literature, and Society
CLASS of 2021
- Yosan Alemu
Comparative Literature & Society - Cassidy Nichole Gabriel
Political Science; History - Abigail Hickman
Political Science; Anthropology - Payton Johnson
Sociology - Isabel Sepulveda
English; Ethnicity & Race Studies
CLASS OF 2020
- Keziah Trine Anderson
History - Nicole Leon Elvir
Political Science; Drama and Theatre Arts - Samuel George Hennison Powell
Classics - Angelo Miguel Hernandez-Sias
English; Creative Writing - Alan Burnett Valverde
English
CLASS OF 2019
- Sofia Nina-Bernardes Martins
- Jorge Antonio Ochoa
- Donovan Redd
- Andrew Joseph Suarez
Class of 2018
- Maia Collins
- Mamasa Dukureh
- Alyssa Mendez
- Sydney Pickens
- Migueyli Rivera
Class of 2017
- Ashleigh Cartwright
- Carmen Ervin
- Breanna Leslie-Skye
- María Muratalla Maes
Class of 2016
- Ashley Casiello
- Lorenzo Gibson
- Isabel Iturrios-Fourzan
- Elan Pochedley
Class of 2015
- Kelly Luis
- David Luna
- Lauren Rangel
- Giovanna Sánchez-Esquivel
- Shondrea Thornton
Class of 2014
- Keyanah Freeland
- Marvellous Iheukwumere
- Tamar Nisbett
- Marlen Rosas
Class of 2013
- Jennifer Alzate
- Maryam Aziz
- Rebecca Clark
- Gerard Ramm
- Devyn Tyler
Class of 2012
- Daniel Alonso
- Louisa Levy
- Michelle Rosales
- Nataly Sauceda
- Daniel Valella
Class of 2011
- Juan Lamata
- Alex Moll
- Albert Rigosi
- SaraEllen Strongman
Class of 2010
- Destin Jenkins
- Paige Johnson
Class of 2009
- Maria Abascal
- Courteney Ervin