2015 Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program (SIFP) Awardees
The Smithsonian Office of Fellowships and Internships is pleased to announce the 2015 Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Awardees. SI Fellowships are offered in order to provide opportunities for graduate students, predoctoral students, and postdoctoral and senior investigators to conduct research in association with members of the Smithsonian professional research staff, and to utilize the resources of the Institution. They are key to the Smithsonian’s aspiration to discover, create, innovate and diversify.
The application cycle for the 2016 SI Fellowship Program will open on Tuesday, September 8th, 2015.
Nicole Angeli
Texas A&M University
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
The effect of life history on persistence of island endemics confronted with invasive predators and climate change
Anne Frances Armstrong
University of California - Davis
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI)
The evolution of major developmental transitions: linking egg size, gene expression, and developmental mode in Leodia sexiesperforata
Dr. Thomas Barnum
University of Georgia
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC)
Quantifying changes in trait diversity along an urbanization gradient
Michelle Baroody
University of Minnesota
National Museum of American History (NMAH)
Mediated Returns: Restating the Global in Modern Arab Poetics
Dr. Bastian Bentlage
University of Maryland
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Loss and gain of complex life history characters of trachyline jellyfish (Cnidaria: Medusozoa: Hydrozoa)
Dr. Blanca Bernal
Ohio State University
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC)
Soil buffering of climate change: leveraging carbon isotopes to determine the stability of soil organic matter
Noga Bernstein
Stony Brook University
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum (CHNDM)
Global Age Design: Primitivism, Universalism and Ruth Reeves’s Cross-Cultural Practice
Warren Cardinal-McTeague
University of Ottowa, Canada
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
The evolution of reproductive characters in Plukenetia vines (Euphorbiaceae)
Amy Coombs
University of Chicago
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Replanting the Wild: Ecosystem Engineering in The Great Basin
John Devaney
University College Cork, Ireland
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC)
Land-Use History and Regeneration of Natural and Plantation Forests
Kristina Douglass
Yale University
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Human-Ratite Interaction in Southwest Madagascar: Understanding the Extinction of the Elephant Bird
Dr. Gail Dubrow
University of Minnesota – Twin Cities
National Museum of American History (NMAH)
Freer Gallery of Art/Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (FSGA)
Japonisme Revisited: Reckoning with the Embrace, Appropriation, and Survival of Japanese Culture in America, 1868-1945
Jenalle Eck
The Ohio State University
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI)
Determinants of negative feedbacks between tropical trees and their pathogens and their implications for diversity in tree genetic defenses
Zoe Eddy
Harvard University
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
The Earth Sings for Itself: Environmental Degradation and the Colonization of the Hokkaido, Japan
Danielle Fraser
Carleton University, Canada
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Late Cenozoic mammal phylogenetic community structure
Meredith Gaglio
Columbia University
National Museum of American History (NMAH)
In Search of a Softer Path: American Architecture, Countercultural Politics, and the Appropriate Technology Movement, 1965-1982
Maybellene Gamboa
Colorado State University
National Zoological Park (NZP)
Implementing knowledge of environmental correlates of adaptive variation to inform conservation decisions
Dr. Inga Geipel
University of Ulm, Germany
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI)
How do bats perceive prey in rain? Raindrops as echo obstacles and masking noise
Ines Gomes
University of Lisbon, Portugal
National Museum of African Art (NMAfA)
Discovering Angola and Mozambique in the Smithsonian Institution: research at the
Jessica Goodheart
University of Maryland – College Park
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Phylogenetics of Cladobranchai (Gastropoda: Nudibranchia) and the Evolution of Stinging Organelles (nematocysts) as a Defense Mechanism
Andrew Gottscho
San Diego State University
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Speciation and Species Delimitation of Zebra-tailed Lizards (Callisaurus draconoides complex)
Saisha Grayson
The City University of New York
Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM)
National Museum of African Art (NMAfA)
Cellist, Catalyst, Collaborator: The Work of Charlotte Moorman, 1963-1980
Sara Grossman
Rutgers University - Newark
National Museum of American History (NMAH)
Smithsonian Institute Archives (SIA)
Natural Histories of Data Collection, 1847-1870
Amanda Guzman
University of California - Berkeley
National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI)
Collecting the Caribbean: Unraveling the Historical Narratives of the Puerto Rican Collection at the National Museum of the American Indian
AJ Harris
Oklahoma State University
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
The effects of time, speciation and extinction rates, and morphological traits on assembly of the woody flora of North America
Kristen Hayashi
University of California – Riverside
National Museum of American History (NMAH)
From Sukiyaki to Spam Musubi: Tracing the Evolution, Adaptation, and Hybridization of Japanese Food in the United States
Shannen Hill
No University – University of Wisconsin – Madison (graduated 2003)
National Museum of African Art (NMAfA)
Art, Gold, and Diamonds in South Africa
Margaret Hinkle
Washington University in St. Louis
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Controls on Mycogenic Manganese Oxide Phase Transformations and Subsequent Impact on Contaminant and Micronutrient Fate
Frances Jacobus-Parker
Princeton University
Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM)
“Redescription: Vija Celmins and the Replica in Postwar American Art”
Krzysztof Kozak
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI)
Coevolution in a dynamic landscape: Genomics of parallel radiations in Heliconius butterflies
Nicole Krauss
Washington State University
National Zoological Park (NZP)
The effects of maternal diet on egg quality and composition in a changing environment
Marci Kwon
Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM)
Vernacular Modernism: Joseph Cornell and the Culture of Populism
Frederick Larabee
University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Morphometrics and Biomechanics of Ant Mouthparts
Perrin Lathrop
Princeton University
National Museum of African Art (NMAfA)
Akinola Lasekan and the Visual Registers of Nigerian Nationalism
Dr. Stephanie Leclerc-Caffarel
Musee du quai Branly, France
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
The collection of Isaac M. Brower
Dr. Matthieu Leray
Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, France
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI)
The Scaling of Diversity in key marine ecosystems of the Bocas del Toro Lagoon
Nicole Lunning
University of Tennessee - Knoxville
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Partial Differentiation of the CV Chondrite Parent Body
Matthew McCurry
Monash University, Australia
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
The evolution of tooth striations in aquatic mammals and reptiles
Kate McGrath
The George Washington University
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Investigating indicators of physiological stress in wild Virunga mountain gorillas through time
Dr. Seth Miller
University of California – Davis
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC)
Testing the potential for adaptation to future climate change in estuarine fishes
Dr. Theresa Miller
University of Oxford, United Kingdom
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Biodiversity Management in the Canela Indigenous Community of Brazil: Linking People, Plants, and Landscapes
Christopher Moore
Indiana University
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Accidental Revolutionary? Jorge Preloran and the Politics of Culture
Alexander Morgan
University of Virginia
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Investigating Alluvial Fan Formation Processes and the Implications for Mars’ Climate
Jennifer Nagashima
Cornell University
National Zoological Park (NZP)
An Artificial Ovary for Endangered Carnivore Genome Rescue
Richard Nash
Johns Hopkins University
Smithsonian Institute Archives (SIA)
National Museum of American History (NMAH)
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Bird Migration Research in American Ornithology: The Bureau of Biological Survey and the Smithsonian Institution, 1930-1975
Carlos Peredo
George Mason University
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Insights into the loss of teeth during the evolution of baleen: description of a new fossil mysticete from the early Oligocene of Oregon
Robert Pivar
University of Tennessee - Knoxville
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Morphological and Molecular Systematics of Nearctic Madicolous Midges in the Genus Androprosopa Mik (Diptera: Thaumaleidae)
Julia Rosenbaum
Bard College
Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM)
Curated Bodies: The Display of Science and Citizenry in Post-Civil War America
Dr. Jay Santillan
University of Texas - Austin
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC)
Understanding the Environmental Distribution and Abundance of Hg Methylation Genes
Sandra Schachat
Mississippi State University
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
The evolution of wing patterning in basal moths: Evolutionary innovations and extant biodiversity
Peter Schafran
Old Dominion University
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Systematics of Isoetes (Isoetaceae, Lycophyta) in the southeastern United States based on whole chloroplast genomes and low-copy nuclear genes
Ray Schmidt
Southeastern Louisiana University
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI)
Effects of Land Use and Water Abstraction on Fish Community and Aquatic Food Web Structure within the Upper Northern Ewaso Ngiro Basin
Mira Schwerda
Harvard University
Freer Gallery of Art/Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (FSGA)
Visualizing Modernity. Photography, Print Culture and Painting in 19th century Iran and Central Asia
Tatiana Sepulveda Villa
Universidade Federal do Parana
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Revision, Systematics and Morphological Phylogeny of Neriidae (Diptera), with focus on genital characters
Jieun Shin
University of Minnesota
Smithsonian Institute Archives (SIA)
National Air and Space Museum (NASM)
Displaying Cold War Science: the Planning of the National Air and Space Museum, 1946-1976
Elizabeth Sibert
University of California – San Diego
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Evolutionary Modeling with Ichthyoliths as a Paleoceanographic and Paleoecological Proxy: What can fossil fish remains tell us about ancient marine ecosystems?
Caitlin Silberman
University of Wisconsin – Madison
Smithsonian Institution Libraries (SIL)
“‘I Believe We Shall Be Crows’: Thinking with Birds in British Art and Visual Culture, 1840-1900”
Emily Smith
Harvard University
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Constraining the tempo of environmental and biological change across the Ediacaran-Cambrian Transition
Whitney Stewart
Rice University
National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC)
National Museum of American History (NMAH)
Activism in the Black Home: Women and the Racial Politics of Domesticity, 1830-1930
Mirian Teiko Nunes Tsuchiya
George Mason University
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Reassessing the role of the Great American Biotic Interchange in the evolution of Procyonidae: early immigrants, museomics and biogeographic modeling
Luke Tornabene
Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi
National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Adaptive evolution of deep-reef fishes: looking to the past for evidence of morphological and genomic responses to a changing ocean
Cara Tremain
University of Calgary, Canada
National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI)
Ancient Maya Dress and Identity: Analysis of Visual Representations
Dr. Jennifer Van Horn
George Mason University
National Portrait Gallery (NPG)
Painting Slaves: Intersections of Slavery and American Art, 1720-1880
Madhvi Venkatraman
University of Maryland
National Zoological Park (NZP)
Adaptation Genomics in Hawaiian Introduced Avifauna
Dr. Stephen Walsh
Harvard University
National Air and Space Museum (NASM)
Void into Meaning: Landscape, Science & Sovereignty in the Polar Regions, 1818-1959
Sarah Weicksel
University of Chicago
National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC)
National Museum of American History (NMAH)
The Fabric of War: Clothing, Culture and Violence in the American Civil War Era