Current Fellows
CLASS OF 2022
Jaala Alston
Ethnicity and Race Studies; Economics
Jaala Alston is a junior at Columbia University double majoring in Economics and Ethnic Studies. She does interdisciplinary research within economic history, political economy, and ethnic studies, and her interests include racial capitalism, intersectionality, geographies of oppression and structural preservation of economic injustices. She believes storytelling and the experiences of others are essential to her insight as a scholar and hopes to marry her experiences as a multi-talented artist with her scholarly work in the future.
Diogene Artiles
Portuguese
Diogene Artiles is a Brooklyn-born language-learner at heart. He is interested in the intersections of language, race and sexuality with contemporary music in Latin America. He is particularly interested in contemporary Portuguese and Spanish music and the evolution of colonial and national ideologies and tropes to sources of empowerment for queer and trans people of color. Outside of research, Diogene enjoys making playlists, creative writing, and bouldering.
Tyler Campbell
African-American Studies; Creative Writing
Tyler Campbell is a writer, media maker, and organizer hailing from the city of Philadelphia. He is currently a Junior at Columbia University double majoring in Creative Writing and African- American Studies. Through his work as a poet and movement worker Tyler uses his voice to offer analytical insights that aim to elevate the stories of those that often go unseen and unheard. Tyler’s interests include Black cultural politics, urbanity, popular culture, hip-hop, education, and literature. He is also an educator whose work centers on issues of mass incarceration, extrajudicial killings of Black people, and human rights. At the heart of all Tyler’s projects is a commitment to unpacking the nuances of Black life in America as portrayed through art and cultural production while also engaging questions about human intentionality, identities and cultural history.
Cameron Flood
Anthropology; Political Science
Raised in Virginia but now residing in North Carolina, Cameron Flood is a Junior at Columbia University pursuing a double major in Political Science and Anthropology. Cameron seeks to find resonances between his two fields of interest, exploring how anthropology can serve as a looking glass through which political phenomenon might take shape. The interdisciplinary flexibility of the two fields allows for a fruitful and constantly-evolving dialogue between various points of interest. Cameron seeks to take advantage of this versatility in engaging with literature, political legislation, and popular Black and Queer theory through an interdisciplinary means.
Ariana Orozco
Ethnicity and Race Studies; Medicine, Literature, and Society
Ariana Orozco from El Paso, Texas is an undergraduate at Columbia University majoring in Ethnic Studies and Medicine, Literature, and Society. Her current research project focuses on how incarceration affects peoples’ attitudes towards health, life, and bodily autonomy.
Class of 2021
Yosan Alemu
Comparative Literature and Society
Yosan Alemu is a senior at Columbia University studying comparative literature with a focus on Black Studies. Her research interests include Black feminist thought, Black Marxisms, and 20th century African and African diasporic literature.
Cassidy Nichole Gabriel
Political Science; History
Cassidy Gabriel is a senior at Columbia University studying Political Theory, Gender Studies, and Computer Science. Her current research focuses on the intersection of sport, gender, race, and power, and she is broadly interested in studying mechanisms of social control, postcolonial technologies, the politics of sport, the construction of categories of difference, theories of the body, and critiques of the modern state. She is passionate about interdisciplinary work and hopes to continue pursuing research that draws on critical, literary, and Black feminist theory while bridging her wide array of interests and centering possibilities for liberation.
Abigail Hickman
Political Science; Anthropology
Abby Hickman is a racially White citizen of the Cherokee Nation raised in Norman, Oklahoma. They are currently a senior at Columbia University studying anthropology and arising student at the University of Limerick seeking a Master’s diploma in English as a Mitchell Scholar. Their experiences growing up at-large, away from their traditional homelands, as well as their lifelong struggles with Autism Spectrum Disorder, anxiety, and chronic depersonalization have pushed them to consider the nature of the real and the unreal as it relates to settler societies. Namely, how can the Cherokee people reconstitute their nationhood, which lies in tatters following Removal and the Dawes Act? How can we imagine the epistemologically unimaginable and that which no longer exists?
Payton Johnson
Sociology
Originally from Denver, Colorado, Payton Johnson is an undergraduate student at Columbia University pursuing a degree in Sociology. His research interests center on urban political economy, gentrification, Hip Hop culture, and Black knowledge production in urban communities. After completing his Bachelor of Arts, Payton plans on pursuing a Ph.D. in Sociology.
Isabel Sepulveda
English; Ethnicity and Race Studies
Isabel Sepúlveda is a senior at Columbia University majoring in English and Comparative Ethnic Studies. Their research interests are broadly centered on time/time travel, speculative fiction and the engagement of these genres with issues of racial and ethnic identity, gender, sexuality, and queerness. Their current projects include using the character of Horatio to explore queer temporality and survival in Hamlet and reading Octavia Butler’s time travel novel Kindred through disability and queer theory to examine how science fiction might offer writers of color a chance to rebuild a lost archive. Isabel hopes to continue engaging with these themes in their research, ultimately focusing on how literature might serve as a vehicle through which marginalized people can represent themselves and imagine for their communities a more just future.
MMUF Alumni
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