The British are coming! The British are coming!

AHRC Fellows, Borbala Nyiri (Left) and Helena Beeley (Right)

Nay – the British are already here!

Back in August 2013, the Smithsonian entered into an agreement with Arts & Humanities Research Council UK (AHRC) that allowed postgraduate students from the UK to be placed at the Smithsonian. Since then, we’ve had five such students come over to the U.S. and join us.

Above are Borbala Nyiri and Helena Beeley. Borbala is a doctoral student at the University of Leicester, studying “Southeast Asian Tradeware Ceramics” at the Freer Sackler Gallery of Art. Helena is a doctoral student at the University of Oxford, studying “Labiovelar Sound Changes in Uto-Aztecan Languages” at the National Museum of Natural History. Pretty neat, right?

I was fortunate enough to meet them yesterday at the Kluge Center, in the Library of Congress. The AHRC lassoed all its Fellows together, around one table, and had them convene over Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. The Fellows introduced themselves and gave snippets about their research. Many AHRC Fellows have been placed at the Kluge Center, and are using the books in the Library of Congress to perform their research. They have their own glossy library desks and everything!

If you’re curious about the Arts & Humanities Research Council Fellowship, you can read more about it here. We’re so grateful for the establishment of this Fellowship!